Valkyrie
by WonderfulWhy
Summary: All she knew was that who she thought she was as a child wasn't real. It was all a lie - she was what people told children about in bedtime stories. S.H.I.E.L.D. discovered her, they kept her in Fury's watch because they saw her as both a threat and an asset. But a new threat is on earth now. And he knows exactly how she feels. Loki/OC ON HIATUS.
1. Prologue

"How we need another soul to cling to."

Sylvia Plath

**That's pretty much the summation of the entire story. Welcome to reading **_**Valkyrie**_** – stick to it. You won't be disappointed; I promise (Much Love, C)**

**By the way, the first four chapters have been revised - please forgive any inconsistencies in the story (they'll be dealt with soon). Please leave reviews, I need the encouragement, my loves.  
**


	2. The Roots of Yggdrasil

**So. This is the official first chapter of _Valkyrie. _A few notes: Ylva's name is pronounced like Ill-Vah; if you want more updates on the progress of my stories and sneak peeks for new chapters, go to my profile and check out the links. Please feel free to review and if you're an artist, I would love some fan renderings! Much Love.**

* * *

There weren't many too many things that would ever convince Nick Fury to go to one of the northernmost villages in Norway, a village that was both above the Arctic circle _and _814 miles away from (what he considered) real civilization; Reine, Norway was one of the least likely places in the world to end up on the budding Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate's map – _But still. Here we are, _Fury thought as they drove through the slick winter streets. On the flight there, Fury had been told that the town was actually quite pleasant and picturesque during the warmer months but it was mid-February now – the small fishing village looked like a ghost town, dark and snow-covered.

As they drove through the icy streets, Fury thought about what had brought them here – or who, to be more precise. It was a child. Fury seriously doubted that this kid would be any help whatsoever when it came to the vexing situation that demanded the new agency's attention so badly but the child, a girl a little older than 10, was the only lead that they had at present and considering what had happened in this small town a little over a week ago, Nick Fury would be damned if they didn't at least have a little chat with the girl – even though Fury was secretly dreading it.

It wasn't that Fury was afraid of a little girl – that was ridiculous. It was that conversing with small children – or trying to get important information out of them – was headache inducing for most all adults that hadn't acclimated to the affected way of speaking that children had. That, and the fact that Nick Fury just didn't like children; this was most likely because Fury didn't understand them. In his opinion, everything that a child did was illogical, silly, overindulged, or just generally irksome – in his opinion, there was nothing _to _understand. But what he _did_ understand was duty. So when it was his duty to drag both his and Agent Phil Coulson's asses out to Middle-Of-Nowhere, Norway to go and _interrogate _a child, he did so without question and without sign of his inward distaste and reluctance. The situation demanded it.

This "situation" consisted of three very exasperating components:

The first was a sample of DNA that was sent into a small, cheap lab in lab in Oslo from a barely-there, speck-on-the-map town in on the coast, the town that he and Coulson were now driving through – Reine, Norway. This DNA was supposedly a sample from the child they were going to question who was, by all verbal accounts, human; they had called and questioned most everyone that this girl had come in contact with and had found very little that was suspicious. Her father was a former Swedish college professor who had moved to Norway after his parents had died. There, he had met his wife whom, like her child, had very little documentation about her past but still had enough documentation to not raise any red flags. These two seemingly normal people had gotten married in a small civil service and had a child a year later, who they had named Ylva Magnhilda-Valis Pála – a perfectly healthy baby girl who had been birthed under the supervision of a midwife in her parent's home on outskirts of town. The parents had never taken the girl to any doctor beyond the dentist. _One of those 'natural remedies' type people, huh? _Fury shrugged. He had heard of more eccentric things. The girl had been homeschooled but still took ballet lessons in town and had one or two friends there whose parents had vouched for her normalcy. Even her father's death a year ago had been from a very common cause – car accident. Indeed the only thing that seemed truly out-of-the-ordinary in this girl's life was her mother's odd disappearance the same day of a freak storm that had so vexed not only the agency's meteorologists, but also scientists in every other field. Mrs. Pála's disappearance would have been ruled a coincidence by S.H.I.E.L.D. if it wasn't for the DNA sample that been sent by some unknown dispatcher from the village post-office which was run by a healthy young man who had been sick the day that the sample was sent out, leaving his forgetful and near-blind grandfather to tend to the office that day. S.H.I.E.L.D. had virtually no idea about the sender, only that they had mailed this strange, strange DNA sample to a drab laboratory in Oslo that was supposedly the DNA of one very human little girl: Ylva Pála.

But the sample was far from human – humanoid, perhaps, but the parts that could be analyzed were far too different to be from a human. Even one that had been exposed to high-levels of Gamma radiation. The DNA was too complex, unlike anything anyone had ever seen before – the only logical explanation for it was almost too illogical for Fury to even allow to enter his head; that the sample wasn't from a human at all, but from another species with a far superior genetic build. And if that didn't mean it was dangerous, Fury didn't know what else would.

The second part of the situation _was_ the freak storm that had concurred on the same day as the disappearance of the mother of Ylva Pála and only days before the lab received the sample. Massive levels of energy that had appeared out of nowhere on the peripheries of this tiny inconsequential town and had then disappeared without a trace, baffling all of his organization's best scientists. One suggested that the satellite images and the energy readings meant that the anomaly was an Einstein-Rosen Bridge – a wormhole. It was worrisome, to say the least. And all of this led into the very last and possibly most important part of the whole ordeal: The implications of all of the questions that the situation brought had this occurred? Why had someone sent the DNA to the lab under Ylva's name? How much of this was connected?

Fury shook his head as he thought about it. He didn't like this at all. It was going to cause him too much trouble, he could tell already.

"Sir?" Agent Phil Coulson drew the director out of his thoughts with a dry formality. "We seem to have arrived." He gestured to a large, sloping hill, topped with a small wooden church which was flanked by an old but large brick building that was the definition of austere as well as depressing, especially in the gray winter light that seemed to bathe the world with a sense of cold hopelessness. It was the effect of winter that had always been the root cause of suffering when it came to Fury – winter always brought with it something empty and lifeless with it. He almost felt bad for the children that were living in the orphanage next to the church. But then as he looked up the hill and saw an elderly woman wrapped in a tremendous number of layers waving at them from the porch of the church, he realized that they would have to leave the comfort of heated vehicle to pass through the gate of the prim and aging fence that wrapped the hill and tread up its slope.

Inwardly groaning, Fury got out of the car and started towards the church, Coulson trailing behind him. By the time they reached the porch of the church, both of them were very nearly winded and very cold – especially Coulson (considering that his socks were almost full of snow by the time they were halfway up the hill.) The elderly woman seemed tired but happy to see that they there safely. ("The roads are so slippery this time of year!") Fury had deduced that this was the woman he had spoken to on the phone; he recalled that she was very happy that someone from the government was taking interest, probably because she thought they had some news about Ylva's mother.

The woman waved them into the simple narthex and shut the door behind them, rubbing her arms with her aged hands to warm herself. She gestured to her office, a small room connected to the narthex that smelled of cinnamon and altruism. After poking the smoldering logs in the fireplace, the woman (a Ms. Halladora) sat in a one of plump chairs that the room seemed to have a strange surplus of – Fury figured that she must teach a class in her office for some of the children in the orphanage. Coulson and Fury took their places in front of her in equally overstuffed chairs. The woman smiled brightly.

"So you are the gentlemen from government – the ones who want to speak with Ylva." She said with a thick accent and a jovial tone.

Fury nodded seriously and said, "Yes, ma'am. We were wondering if you could tell us a little bit of the circumstances which brought Miss Pála here."

"Oh, is very strange," the woman sighed. "I was asked little while ago by her mother to watch her for a while because she was going to go to visit parents in Uppsala – which is odd."

"How so?" Coulson piped up.

"Well… I never expected Mrs. Pála to allow Ylva to stay with church."

Fury crossed his fingers and leaned towards her. "Why is that? Was Mrs. Pála not religious?"

"No, no, no… She was. She was just not Protestant like her late husband. She is… was a Norse Neo-pagan," the elder's voice dropped to a whisper when she said this as if it was a scandalous secret. "When Mr. Pála was alive her sometimes took little Ylva to service but Mrs. Pála never came and ever since her husband's accident, she didn't take Ylva in. Ever."

Fury decided that this was immaterial and decided to move the conversation on to something more helpful. "Can you tell us how you are so sure that her mother disappeared?"

"Ylva told us when we came to pick her up that her mother left her forever – disappeared plainly. We thought she was just missing her but Ylva is very serious girl when it comes to those kinds of things– we took her word and spoke to the police. Then I received a letter from her mother that she had probably sent before she left saying that she was not going to come back for Ylva. It was a very short letter… Such a sad situation." The woman kneaded her hands with the anxiety of just thinking about it.

"I see," Fury attempted to sound sympathetic. "May we speak to her, Ms. Halladora?"

The woman shrugged, "You can try…" She creaked up from her chair, gesturing them to follow her out of the church and over to the larger building that served as quarters for the children. Even though the walk wasn't very long, by the time they got into the entrance of the complex (which was even more austere up close), they were all just relieved to be out of the biting cold.

Ms. Halladora seemed to lead them through a labyrinth of hallways lined with doorways like an even more depressing version of a Catholic elementary school. The woman stopped in her tracks and turned towards the Fury with a concerned look on her elderly, matronly face. "Ylva has become very introverted lately… Be gentle when talking to her and maybe she'll talk back but I can't promise you that she'll talk to you." Fury only cocked his eyebrow critically at her but she seemed to be satisfied with that as a response as she started to shuffle off once again, leading them finally to a door to the stone courtyard.

When the door opened, a gust of cold, winter wind blew through them, ushering in a flurry of snow. The child was on the opposite side of the courtyard draped oversized, adult cardigan that seemed to swallow this very small child, this "Ylva" up in its cable-knit folds. Fury noted how delicate Ylva seemed, even from far away; the file that their techs had put together said that the child was 10 years old but it failed to mention the slightness that accompanied that age to make it seem like considerably less.

"Should we have brought a car-seat?" Coulson asked dryly.

Almost as soon as the first syllable sounded, Ylva spun around in a heartbeat with an agility and speed that should have been unheard of in children. It wasn't natural. It made Fury want to put his hand on his gun to prepare for an even quicker attack. But as much as Fury was guarded, he couldn't help but be disarmed when he saw the child's face.

Ylva was striking in a way that no one had seen in ages; her angled jaw and bitingly sharp cheekbones seemed to be painted with a sort of regality that was no longer seen in humans, only animals. Her chapped and wind-burnt lips were full and bowed delicately to form what seemed to be a look of solemn caution as she stood slowly to face them fully. Her skin was smooth and pale like a porcelain doll's might have been. She could have borne a look of fragility with no effort at all had it not been for her eyes – they were old eyes, full of wisdom and sadness and pain and hardness. They couldn't be called soft like the wild and dark waves of her hair might be. They weren't cold, however – oh, no; they were full of a guarded warmth and empathy that one might bestow on a wounded animal. But even in their warmth they were still hard – Fury could tell that this girl was not to be trusted or left to her own devices... For now. As he examined her, he ruled that her looks were disconcerting, almost spooky, but beautiful, nonetheless.

Fury walked forward to the girl and knelt down to be at eye-level with the girl. He looked into the deep amber pools that were her eyes, searching for a trace of childlike ineloquence to disprove his sinking suspicion that they had found where their sample had come from. Suddenly, the girl spoke in a hard and cautious voice.

"Are you here about my mother?" Ylva Palá asked frankly and clearly, with only a hint of accent that proved her heritage – this troubled Fury even more. She wasn't supposed to speak English such an unaffected way. This was deduced by the information in her file but it was apparent now that her file did not include some very vital information. For here she spoke to him in English with a near-Standard American dialect with some apparent ease. Fury's brow furrowed in a vague gesture of frustration stemming from his team's apparent lack of ability to find all pertinent information regarding Ylva Palá.

"You speak English." It was not a question. It was a statement.

"I speak many languages," Ylva's eyes trailed down to his jacket-covered left hip. "Do you have a gun? Is it real? Is it loaded?"

Fury had already decided that she was not childlike, in general. But it still amused him that she seemed to have a childlike curiosity. "Yes to all counts," he briefly held out his jacket to give her a better view of the firearm. "Ylva, do you know where your mother is?"

"You know my name." The small girl's looked annoyed and seemed to now be pouting.

"I do," Fury laughed at her apparent indignance. "But you don't know mine and that bothers you even more than the fact that I know yours, doesn't it?" She nodded her head slightly. He held a broad hand out to her. "Nick Fury, Director of the Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate."

Ylva's eyebrow arched in amusement and her lips pursed to contain a smile. "Catchy," Her smile faded quickly and was replaced by something like a resigned glare before she started to fiddle with the large wooden buttons on her cardigan. "My mother disappeared into a storm of light – she told me that she was leaving me because she just 'couldn't' anymore…" The girl bit her lip with a bitter sadness. She looked so angry for a child. She took a great breath of air as lifted her head back up to stare at Fury. "You're going to take me away, huh? You're dangerous. I can tell. And you are wondering about something my mother did before she disappeared or maybe you just want to know about the ... the storm… But either way. You think I might be dangerous, too. That's why you came here."

Fury stared at her for a long time, unable to speak out of surprised that this small child had deducted that from this brief interaction. He finally straightened up, towering over her in the process. "Yes."

She looked somewhat resigned when he said this. "Fine."


	3. Ylva

**Alright, Wilburs. Time for some clarification – Ylva (again, pronounced ILL-vuh; it's a Swedish/Scandinavian name) is not a superhuman or anything like that; I also hope she's not a Mary Sue because those suck. She has some major temper issues as well as some pretty deep resentment towards her mother. In the following chapter, all of you comic book nerds like me will be able to guess what Ylva is. **

_15 Years Later – Present Day, Remote Research Facility_

Ylva alighted from the S.H.I.E.L.D helicopter with relative ease and grace then extended her small hand to grasp Agent Hill's forearm, pulling her down in a gesture of camaraderie. It was one of the only ways that Ylva really ever showed physical affection and Agent Hill was one of the select few she ever showed _any_ form of physical affection to. Ylva only showed gratuitous affection to animals; this was her way ever since she was a child. Hugging, cuddling, and just touching in general had just never come naturally to her just like the way it had never come naturally to her mother – the only person she remembered hugging her was her father and that was such a long time ago. And even then, she had never initiated. She suspected that her aversion to physical affection had only worsened when she was 'taken in' by S.H.I.E.L.D.

Fury and Coulson had escorted her straight from the small orphanage that she had been staying at since her mother left and walked her right into some research facility (_Much like this one_, she noted with a secret shiver) and run an extensive battery of tests on her – both physical and mental; most of which were painful in both ways. Injections, scans, evaluations – everything that could be tested was.

"_Ylva, you have a high I.Q. so at some point you must have said to yourself 'why?'," Nick Fury pulled up a chair beside the cold metal slab she had been placed on – it was like an inglorious pedestal, positioned by its lonesome in a small, bare room that seemed much too like a cold cavern to the small child. "You must have questioned why you were so different from other children."_

"'_So different'?" The small girl questioned thickly, trying to make the situation shift in her favor. She had deduced that these people (whoever they were) had some special interest in her. Why else would agents of the American government make a little girl from rural Norway undergo a series of painful tests? No, her best bet in this situation was to convince him that she wasn't anything special. "We're all different… I'm just different in a very different way than most. But I don't think that I merit being placed in a category separate from my peers."_

_Fury pursed his lips and shook his head; perhaps he was just frustrated that she was unaware. "You're ten years-old. The fact that you just said 'merit being placed in a category separate from my peers' proves my point – you do belong in a separate category. Hell, you belong in a different species." Fury's face was unreadable to Ylva which made it unsettling for her; she squirmed like a little kid. It made her mad. _

_Ylva started to grit her teeth and her chest started to tighten as she seethed, "What do you mean… Director Fury?" She started to clench the metal table without knowing it._

_Fury looked at her, almost bemused before gesturing to her hands. When she lifted them she saw with a pang of embarrassment that she had crumpled the stainless steel with her bare hands; but she wasn't shocked. Only ashamed. This had happened before – she had a temper when she felt like she wasn't in control, when she was helpless; and at this point she was very, very, very helpless. Fury grabbed one of her hands and turned it palm up – not a mark in sight. "Your bones and skin have a density that is roughly three times thicker than a human's and yet they still manage to be lighter than any human's. Your metabolism is literally impossibly high. You could be stabbed, shot, beaten (although that is helluva unlikely circumstance considering you have heightened senses, motor skills, and reaction time) and you would be fine. You are also immune to all of the diseases we've injected you with –"_

"_What?"_

"_Never mind that. You also seem to be physically perfect – no deformities (even minor) in your skeletal structure or any other system for that matter. You are," He fought to find a word that wouldn't sound too outlandish and failed. "I can't even describe it. That and your DNA is so damn complex that my best guys—"_

"_Do you not have female scientists?" She folded her arms in front of her chest and looked decidedly sassy before Fury got very serious._

"_You aren't a human. It's impossible. I don't know what you are and it seems neither do you," He stood up and started to walk away. "That is what I mean, Valkyrie."_

_Ylva felt crushed but she tried to call after him in a confident voice. "Valkyrie?"_

_Fury turned and folded his arms, mirroring her actions from moments before. "That's gonna be your name while you're with us – congratulations. You're officially an agent-in-training for the __Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division." He smiled slightly at her before continuing to walk away._

"_And what if I don't want to be an agent?" She called frantically to his back, praying secretly for him to say something like 'Oh, then you can go back home. Continue to live your old life, pretending that everything is hunky-dory and life is swell and that you're human.' But he didn't._

_He didn't even turn this time as he answered matter-of-factly, "Then you're not an agent – you're a threat and will be treated and disposed of as such." It wasn't a threat… It was a promise._

_Ylva glared at his back as he left the room. She had never been so angry or so sad in her life. _What am I? _She thought with despair. _Am I a monster? _Her grip tightened again on the table with the realization that everything she knew about her existence was a lie. Her mother lied – she must have known. Everything was a lie. She wasn't what she thought she was for her entire life – she had no _identity _anymore. She wanted to scream, to cry, to do _something_, but she wasn't the kind of person to scream or cry or throw a fit – that wasn't who she was. But right now she didn't know who she was. But whoever she was, she couldn't cry or verbally rage._

_Trying to calm herself, she took great, deep breaths and imagined that she was home, with her now-dead father and her abandoning-mother._

_Ylva jumped off of the table calmly, and then proceeded to throw it across the room._

"All personnel, an evacuation order has been confirmed. Proceed to your designated vehicles for all campus evacuation. This is not a drill. Emergency personnel proceed to your designated vehicles for all campus evacuation." The intercom buzzed and panicked people in lab coats hurried past their chopper, snapping her out of her state of 'reminiscing'.

The young woman adjusted her standard-issue female S.H.I.E.L.D. jumpsuit. _Catsuit. _She snickered at herself. As Fury started to charge forward in his black military boots, Phil Coulson strode towards them to join them. Fury's pace was quick as he spoke to Coulson. "How bad is it?"

Coulson had a somewhat frazzled-but-calm thing going on as he replied, "That's the problem, Sir. We don't know. Doctor Selvig read an energy surge from the Tesseract four hours ago." Fury's brow furrowed.

"NASA didn't authorize Selvig could go to test B."

Coulson shook his head slightly and kept up to Fury's pace. "He wasn't testing it. He wasn't even in the room. Spontaneous event."

She smirked and turned to Fury. "So the cosmic cube's acting up? And I thought everything was going so well trying to harness an intergalactic power for our own means…"

Phil Coulson shot her a dry smile while Agent Hill elbowed her in the ribs. Fury just cocked an eyebrow at her and said, "Tesseract. Not 'cosmic cube', Valkyrie." He started to walk into the facility and Hill and Ylva started to trail him like obedient goslings; when Fury wasn't around she liked to affectionately refer to him as 'Mother Goose'. As they descended lower into the facility, scientists rushed around them to get to the helipads in order to evacuate. "Where are the energy levels now?"

"Climbing," Coulson looked like he was masking serious concern as he said, "When Selvig couldn't shut it down we ordered evac."

Ylva's eyebrows furrowed at this – if the Tesseract was really growing as unstable as Coulson said, then the situation would probably bypass the point of evacuation. Ylva was drawn out of her musings on the situation by Agent Hill, who seemed to have just been saying the same thing as Ylva was thinking.

"… Evacuation may be futile." They all started to descend a massive and winding staircase down to the Tesseract's holdings.

"Sir, I agree with Agent Hill. The Tesseract is growing volatile and I don't think it's just a random event; something is going to happen and until then the situation is just going to escalate beyond our control – and it seems like that point has come. There won't _be _a minimum safe distance." Ylva hated the 'cosmic cube' for this reason – it wasn't meant to be controlled by humans; they weren't evolved enough to handle it. And Ylva had a sinking suspicion that Fury wasn't just using it for energy.

Fury stopped dead in his tracks and turned to face them. "What would you suggest? Sending them back to their beds?"

"No, sir. I onl –"

"Then let them keep evacuating," He continued down to another platform and barked orders at Hill as he walked. "I need you to make sure that the Phase Two prototypes are shipped out." Ylva wasn't privy to what that meant – but she wasn't stupid enough to think that she knew all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secrets; after all, she was one of their secrets in the first place.

Hill seemed to bite her tongue before asking, "Is that _really _a priority right now?"

Fury stopped yet again and said impatiently, "Until such time as the world ends we will act as though it continues to spin on. Clear out the tech below; every piece of Phase Two on the truck and gone," He continued to walk on as Hill huffed away with her orders.

Ylva pursed her lips and continued to follow Fury. "This is a terrible idea."

"What? Going down to the Tesseract?" Fury entered the lab with Ylva trailing close behind him.

"No," She followed him as he walked to meet Selvig. "Using it in the first place." They reached Selvig and she gave him a strong nod. She had a feeling that Selvig was a bit wary of her considering that he was wary of Fury and she was essentially Fury's shadow. This saddened her slightly – she wished she could befriend him; he was from Sweden and was somewhat soft-spoken. He reminded her of her home. But she realized that she would probably have to deal with him not wanting to be very chummy with her – she wasn't good at making friends. S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't give her the time.

"Talk to me, Doctor," Fury peered over at the Tesseract for a moment before turning back towards Selvig. "Is there anything we know for certain?"

"The Tesseract is misbehaving." Selvig said. Ylva inwardly snickered, thinking he was making a joke.

Fury was not so amused. "Is that supposed to be funny?" Selvig looked just as concerned as Fury.

"No, it's not funny at all," Selvig walked over to one of the computers. "The Tesseract is not only active, she's misbehaving."

"How soon can you pull the plug?" Fury asked.

The answer pleased no one. "She's an energy source. We turn off the power, she turns it back on. If she reaches peak level – " Fury seemed to dismiss it but Ylva could see subtle hints of doubt etched on his face.

"We prepared for this, Doctor. Harnessing energy from space."

Ylva crossed her arms. "Yeah. This seems like the definition of 'prepared' to me."

Selvig seemed somewhat amused. "We don't have the harness. My calculations are far from complete. She's throwing off interference, radiation. Nothing harmful, low levels of Gamma radiation."

"I can't listen to this…" Ylva mumbled. Not wanting to hear whatever dire and vague answer that the brilliant scientist could provide, she walked over to the Tesseract, folded her arms and bent over to look at it, her nose only about 6 inches away from the glowing cube.

In all honesty, she didn't know what could ever be so threatening that Fury would endanger the world in such a way. _They should have left you in the ocean_, she thought gently before feeling the distinct feeling that someone was approaching her. She straightened up.

"Hawkeye, if you try and sneak up on me again, I will end you." She felt him thump her on the back with his broad hand.

"You wouldn't _end _me," He smirked down at the young woman. "You would probably just break my arm like you did when you were 17… for absolutely no reason."

She arched her eyebrow at him. "I still blame hormones."

"Aw. Did someone not get asked to Junior Prom?"

She snorted and grinned at him before saying, "You, probably - I've seen pictures of you in high school. If I did go to high school, I'd like to think that I would have been, how do you say, a 'Sheba'?"

"No. No one would say that – mostly because this isn't the 40's," He clapped her on the shoulder. "That, and you're too scrawny." He patted her on her head to reinforce his point – she was only 5'2" and lean. Scrawny was actually a pretty accurate word to describe her, but she preferred the term 'svelte'.

"Am no—" Ylva was interrupted by her own senses. There was something that wasn't right – that wasn't there before. Something that was coming. "Wait. It's emitting more radiation now – did anyone change something?" Ylva called out to the lab. Most shook their heads or said variations of 'No'.

Hawkeye kept a wary eye on Ylva. "If there's any tampering, I doubt it was from this end."

"At this end." Fury repeated. Hawkeye shrugged in his own serious way.

"Yeah, the Cube is a doorway to the other end of space, right? Doors open from both sides."

"Anyone got an intergalactic padlock?" Ylva muttered under her breath before tensing up, her whole body going frigid. The Tesseract was now emitting even more energy, she could feel it.

Hawkeye saw and noted her immediate change in demeanor; her stance was reminded him of some sort of beast ready to attack. He had seen this before and he knew what it meant – the door was going to open. "Sir? I think that we have company." His eyes trailed over to the platform that was now steadily emitting waves of energy and swirling with some sort of unnatural light and colors. Suddenly, a great beam of light shot out of it and a figure started to materialize.

Ylva pulled out her gun and back-tracked hastily, standing in front of Fury in a protective stance; she would never admit it to anyone – and dammit, she'd deny it if anyone said so – but Fury was like a father to her. And what she didn't realize was that she was like a daughter to Fury – but that didn't mean his duty to protect the Tesseract came before Ylva's safety.

At Fury's signal to advance, Ylva moved forward, keeping low to the ground and keeping her eyes on the swirling din of colors on the distant platform. The figure started to appear clearer and clearer out of the colors and in an instant, the colors and light dissipated leaving only a kneeling male figure. It almost looked like he was praying. Ylva immediately noticed what looked like a golden staff or maybe a scepter in his hand.

_Well, that doesn't look too friendly,_ she mused. Then she realized that she sensed a kind of energy signature radiating from it that she had never felt before. _Not good._

"Don't get near him!" She yelled to the other agents advancing at him. "That scepter it's got some sort of –" It would have been nice for Ylva to have been able to finish her sentence, but the huge concussive blast of energy that this man shot at her from his scepter was a bit impeding on that count; it hit her squarely on the chest and sent her flying across the room, hitting a nearby wall.

It was times like these that the young woman was thankful she wasn't human – because at that point her spine would have been wrecked and her head would have been bashed. Kill shot. It hurt, of course, but it didn't keep her from hoping back to her feet and screaming at the man who was proceeding to kill the other agents that had advanced on him. "Stand down, prick!" His head snapped towards her to meet her eyes. He seemed shocked that she was still able to move much less breathe enough to shout expletives at him.

With a smirk he sent another blast her way but she was paying attention this time and replied with a well-timed roll. Sprinting towards the Tesseract and Fury, Ylva skidded beside Fury and hissed at him while Hawkeye attempted to subdue the man. "That isn't _natural_. Middle Earth over there is wielding some major firepower that is seriously advanced past what we have here at present. We need to – Shit." She turned to see the man advancing towards Clint with that scepter (_That stupid, stupid, stupid-looking scepter_) and lightly tapping him on the chest – Clint's eyes turned an eerie shade of blue and he seemed to freeze in attention for a moment before putting his gun away. _Natasha is going to kill me. _"You have heart." He said wickedly.

"Hawkeye." Ylva said simply. No response. She rushed forward to him but was stopped in her tracks when the man pointed the scepter's tip at her.

He smiled eerily. "You have heart, too," His voice was silky and pleasant to listen to in a revolting kind of way. "But _you _are very different from him, aren't you?" The man started to get closer to her.

Ylva was very angry at this point, her chest tightening with rage. She was in no mood for his little riddling questions. "How did you guess? I'm a Pieces and he's a Scorpio," She tilted her head to one side and hissed, "_Completely different_." He advanced even closer but the girl made no move away until the scepter was inches from her breast.

Twisting into a back bend, Ylva kicked off the ground with enough force to launch her feet into the air so she was balancing on her hands; within a split second she kicked his pulse point on the hand that was holding his weapon and took advantage of his momentary shock, closing her feet around the scepter's shaft and pulling it out of his hands. She flipped back onto her feet, now a better distance from the still shocked God. She picked up the scepter but no sooner did she touch the length did it start to burn her, making her drop it on the ground in front of the man. "_Shit_. Fuck you, too, Bowie…" She hissed as he picked it up.

An indignant snarl graced his pale face for a split second before a smile slid across it. "You may want to watch your tone when addressing your King."

"Who the hell are you? Because if you're not Harald the Fifth of Norway, you're not my king." The woman glared at him. If looks could kill.

Middle-Earth started to reply to her but something behind her caught his eye. "Please don't. I still need that." Ylva turned slightly to see Fury walking slowly out with a briefcase which she presumed held the Tesseract. He stopped in his tracks and turned around.

"This doesn't have to get any messier." Fury said diplomatically – the other man just laughed.

"Of course it does. I've come too far for anything else. I am Loki, of Asgard. And I am burdened with glorious purpose." He looked so smug about it. It was really pissing Ylva off but she knew she had to refrain from any rash action – she had read about how this 'Loki' had sent a mechanical creature called the Destroyer to a New Mexican town and wreaked havoc as well as various accounts of his misdeeds housed in myths; he was tricky.

Selvig decided to jump in. "Loki? Thor's brother?"

"That oaf is no brother of mine." _Harsh_.

"We have no quarrel with your people –" Fury reasoned.

"An ant has no quarrel with a boot," That smug smile slipped back onto his face.

Grimacing, Fury growled, "You planning to step on us?"

"I come with glad tidings," Loki spread his arms in an oddly out of place gesture of warmness considering he had just brain-washed a man and killed about ten others. "Tidings of a world made free."

"Something tells me your perception of 'free' is seriously warped." Ylva scoffed. Loki glared at her but Fury took his attention away from her.

"Free from what?"

Loki smiled brightly. "Freedom. Freedom is life's great lie. Once you accept that, in your heart…" He suddenly turned and tapped Selvig on the chest as well, making the scientist's eyes turn the same eerie shade of blue that Hawkeye's now bore. "You will know peace." Loki finished.

"Thank you," Ylva smirked sarcastically. "I'd never seen a living oxy_moron_ before."

Barton suddenly spoke in an emotionless voice to Loki. "Sir, Director Fury and Valkyrie are stalling. This place is about to blow and drop a hundred feet of rock on us. They mean to bury us."

"He's right. The portal is collapsing in on itself. We've got maybe two minutes before this goes critical." Selvig chimed in with the same dead voice as Hawkeye.

"Well then." Loki said simply and started to leave the room. Barton shot at both Fury and Ylva without warning, hitting her in the chest. She fell backwards but rebalanced herself on her feet and bent back up – but not fast enough for Barton to not get away with the Tesseract. She pulled the bullet out of her chest and tossed it on the ground; it had just hit her sternum and had hardly broached her skin. She was fine. Ylva turned towards Fury but he shooed her away.

"Go. Get. The. Tesseract."

She didn't need to be told twice as she ran out of the room to find Hill in the vehicle bay. As she ran towards the other woman, she barked. "Barton turned – they have the Cube. We need to go." Hill nodded and Ylva jumped into the passenger seat as the engine revved to life and started barreling after Loki's merry band.

Peering into the tunnel, she saw that both Hawkeye and Selvig were in the cab, with the Hawk driving. Loki was in the back with his scepter in one hand and the Tesseract in the other. As the two women started to gain on them, Ylva stood up in the jeep and proceeded to climb into the trunk. Taking deep, slow breaths, Ylva estimated her ability to make the jump. _Eh. Imma risk it. _She then she hurdled into the carriage of Loki's jeep, landing on Selvig's lap. _I'm an idiot._ "Sorry, Erik." From her position in the cab she reached over and pulled a panel off of the dash, grabbing a handful of wires and giving them a quick tug to rip them out – it would at least slow them down.

"Are you mad?" Loki bellowed at her, lunging at her neck.

Kicking him in the chest, Ylva scoffed. "You're the one wearing the cape and wielding a scepter – you tell me." She hopped onto his shoulders and started to effectively strangle him with her thighs. Hawkeye seemed to be torn between helping his new master or driving the jeep, which was currently swerving like all hells in the now collapsing tunnel.

"As much as I'm enjoying this –" Loki hissed before giving Ylva a sharp bite to her inner thigh, her hold loosening just enough for Loki to throw her into the backseat. Hawkeye had apparently ruled Loki capable enough to handle himself against the girl and kept driving.

Ylva clambered up from the backseat just long enough for Loki to hit her in the jaw with the broadside of his scepter with enough force to snap a human's neck, effectively pissing her off enough to want to really mess him up; but there didn't seem to be time for that considering Loki was picking her up and throwing her out of the jeep and into the collapsing tunnel.

Ylva broke her fall but still rolled across the ground. "This is bull." Ylva muttered as she sprinted to catch up to her jeep (she was fast enough), finally jumping into the back before she was clipped by a falling rock. She realized it was too late – Loki still had the Tesseract and they were going to be caught in the collapse. Loki shot her a smirk and proceeded to blast one of their tires, slowing them even more; within seconds the rubble of the collapsing tunnel crushed the jeep and (almost) them. Loki and his entranced captives had escaped.

Ylva crawled out of the wreckage and jumped to her feet, all limbs intact. Looking back at the tunnel, she knew she wouldn't be able to say the same for anyone caught in there. Hill pulled out her communicator and held it up warily to listen for further instructions. Fury's voice droned out – he had escaped the collapse. "The Tesseract is with a hostile force. I have men down. Hill? Valkyrie?"

"A lot of men still under. Don't know how many survivors." Hill replied. Ylva ran her hands through her dark hair and leaned against one of the rocks; she was too angry to operate right now.

Fury's voice droned again. "Sound a general call. I want every living soul not working rescue looking for that briefcase."

"Roger than," Hill said before tucking her communicator away and turning to Ylva. "You alright?"

Ylva shook her head and rubbed her chest where she had been shot – it didn't really hurt but the sting of failure did. So did the implications of said failure. "No… That was a disaster. And now that Loki has the Tesseract… We're screwed." 

**Review, my dears! I hope you enjoyed and check out the tumblr on my profile – it provides graphics and updates about my progress. Also, if you're into art, I would love to see some fan art for this fic.**

**Much love, C**


	4. The Eagle

**Salutations again, Wilburs. So I just want to make this clear – I am not in love with love triangles. I think I might be allergic so don't you worry; this is NOT Captain American x OC x Loki. Ylva can hardly deal with her own feelings let alone the feelings of two men… Speaking of feelings, enjoy a bunch of Fury and Ylva ones. Yay.**

Fury didn't bother looking for Ylva in her small room at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters; she was never there, even at night – she always said something about the room being too depressing to bear. S.H.I.E.L.D. had bought her a small apartment in New York, of course, but Fury usually kept her so busy she never really got to enjoy it… But even when she did have the time, she never really made any attempt to individualize it, to actually _live _in it. Fury wasn't a shrink but he didn't need to be one to see the reason for that – she had what they called 'a perpetual identity crisis'.

Fury didn't really feel bad for her; he knew she would (probably) overcome it eventually. But in stark contrast to his own semi-indifference, Romanoff had been expressing some small signs of worry over Ylva's wellbeing – but he chalked this up to the fact that Romanoff was only slightly older than the girl in question and had also gone through a similar ordeal. When Barton found Romanoff, she was also questioning who she really was. Fury had seen the marked change in both of his agents after they had spent time helping each other through their issues by just being there for each other, by just _understanding_. They shared a similar temper and disposition, but that was not something that Fury could say for Ylva – he had never met anyone quite like her – no one that he could imagine having an honest empathy for her; she was difficult and repressive of any kind of passionate feeling that wasn't anger; she wasn't bubbly or prone to being affectionate (in fact, she seemed to be incapable of being either and was disturbed by both aspects when it came to other people.) Fury supposed that while he couldn't imagine Romanoff or Barton sitting down to have a casual bite to eat somewhere quaint and normal, he _could _imagine them being truly happy one day – and that would probably be thanks to each other. But when he tried to imagine that for Ylva, he didn't – _couldn't_ – see it. Fury wasn't heartless; he did want Ylva to be really happy – but to do that, she would have to be happy with herself first. And to be happy with herself, she would inevitably have to try and understand herself. _For the myriad facts the Valkyrie knows, there are still some very big things she doesn't have any damn clue about, _Fury chuckled to himself as he continued his search.

Ylva had phases that she went through when it came to hiding places. Fury remembered each and every one of them because it was always inexplicably him that would have to take time out of his busy schedule to find her – when she was young, it was the hard places like the minute blind-spots in their security camera system that she favored to use as locations for relief of the pressure of being constantly monitored. This always caused a huge fuss (_The alien has escaped again, Director!_) but Fury would always find her after a while, hiding in a wall panel or taking a nap on a ceiling beam; Coulson had once questioned her about why she didn't just run away if she was so good at hiding. Ylva, who was 12 at the time, had replied, "Because anyone with half a brain knows that you don't run away from a guy with an eye-patch and innumerable technological resources." Fury had many stories like this from her preteen years; when she was older and realized that Fury had stopped even looking for her on the security feed (he enjoyed the challenge), she had started to hide in more obvious, comfortable places that would serve her purposes. Lately, it was the roof of the athletic complex that she had preferred but he didn't bother looking for her in that locale because she only went there at night, when she needed to think. Judging by what happened with the Tesseract, Fury knew that right now she was trying to do just the opposite.

He finally found her in the pool that they used for resistance training – this was no surprise. Ylva swam when she was too angry to even think through the problem that was making her angry in the first place. And she was 'too angry' _most_ of the time even though _most _couldn't tell; it was something that she mostly kept under control or redirected to sarcasm or wit but it didn't mean it wasn't there. It was, like most of Ylva's feelings, simply under the surface and you had to understand that about her to see it in the first place; and if there was one thing Nick Fury understood, it was anger. He crouched down at the end of her swim lane and waited.

By the time she reached the end that the Director was waiting on, Ylva had been aware of his presence long before he even came close to the pool; even underwater she could hear his distinctive walk plodding her way (_Stomp, stomp, I-have-so-much-authority, stomp._) But she really wasn't in the mood to hear his lecture about her failings – she beat herself up about it enough as it was; then again, he was the damn _Director_ of the Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate. She had to talk to him.

_Doesn't mean I have to be polite._

Delicately leaping out of the pool and pulling off her swim cap, Ylva brushed past him, hoping that he could feel the anger that was radiating off of her skin enough to make him get the message that she didn't want to deal with him. "What do you want, Fury?" She grumbled at him like a stroppy teenager and started to dry off. There wasn't much to dry – she was all muscle but she was built small and proportionately so; she was, as Hawkeye had said, scrawny. The swim caps were necessary even though they sometimes gave her tensions headaches; she kept her hair long (for some reason that even she wasn't sure of), letting the deep ashy brown waves curl out every which way. It was kind of crazy – not unkempt, just wild. While she was on-duty (which was most of the time) she worked it into a thick braid or a bun. It was hard to handle – nice, but difficult to deal with and _impossible _to keep completely dry in the pool; even with the cap, her hair got a bit wet. She just shook the water out of her hair in Fury's direction.

Fury didn't seem to care. He was used to the many moods of the Valkyrie. "_We _are going to New York."

This statement wasn't too surprising. Fury had said something about assembling a team. Ylva rubbed her angular jaw, knowing that she didn't really have a choice as per usual – even though she hated traveling with a deep intensity. She tried to look on the bright side; she loved New York. Turning towards Fury, the young woman put her hands on her hips like she did when she was still that little girl who was too sassy for her own good. "'Quack, quack.' That's baby goose for 'fine but I don't want to get your stupid lecture on the way there'." Ylva stuck out her tongue at the now mildly confused director for good measure.

Shaking his head, Fury picked up a towel and threw it at her, presumably for her hair. "We leave in an hour. You're already packed," He started to walk away but called out behind him, "And by the way: 'quack, quack, quack.' That's mother goose for 'if I hear you calling me Mother Goose again I will kick your skinny ass'."

She snorted and yelled to his back, "I love you, too, Mother Goose."

Ylva was always surprised by how much she liked New York City. After all, she spent a good 40% of her life in a town with less than 1,000 residents; but New York was heavenly – even when she counted the crime rate and the weird smells and the crowds. It was beautiful and exotic to her, a mix of cultures and identities that could distract her from her current lack of both. The city glowed, too – and it wasn't like the ominous glow that the Tesseract gave off; it was a glow all its own. All of those souls dancing like light on a wall, moving, breathing, _living _together; there was a minute part of Ylva, a part that Ylva had hidden from most everyone, which wished she was one of them. She felt she didn't have a light or at least the light that she had was long gone, dimmed into non-existence by her mother's lies. But when she was in New York… She felt a little better. Less lonely. More real. The only thing that could possibly spoil her contentment at being in New York was who they were supposed to be paying a little visit to.

Ylva pulled her knees up to her chest in the passenger seat of the sedan that S.H.I.E.L.D. had supplied them with after they had landed. She had heard that Natasha was somewhere in India with a multitude of sharp shooters to look for Dr. Bruce Banner, one of the foremost experts in Gamma radiation in the world, in India. And as much as she loved New York, visiting Steve Rogers was one of the last things she wanted to do. India would have meant extra travel (which, again, she _hated_) but she preferred that rather that visiting someone as annoying as Captain America.

"Is Eagle Scout really necessary for this, sir? I mean I get that he's 'the first Avenger' and all but… Really? _Really?_" She asked frankly as he drove them through the dark Brooklyn streets. "He's hardly… er, fit for this kind of… assignment." They hit a pothole and Ylva gasped loudly and gripped the inside of the car like her life depended on it. She prayed that Fury would ignore it – and after one or two seconds of an irritatingly concerned look, her prayer was answered.

"You're just mad that he heard that little accent of yours that you've tried so hard to get rid of… and you're mad that he found it strange that women can be on the frontlines," Fury pointed out with an amused chuckle; he always found her sass about any perceived misogyny hilarious. Especially when the misogyny wasn't actually there. "He was asleep for 70 years, Valkyrie. What do you expect?"

"One, I don't have an accent anymore, I still think that Barton tipped him off. Two, his shock was a bit much – it was offensive. I vote 'no' for the Eagle Scout joining the club," Ylva wanted to fold her arms just like she did when she was a child but she had a difficult time doing so without releasing her death-grip on the car's interior. "He might not even want to help – I mean if you had the choice to not get involved in all of this, would you?" She asked.

Fury grew serious. "Yes."

"That's just because you love to fight," she sighed. _Fury just doesn't understand, _Ylva thought as she ran her hands through her hair. He just didn't _get _it – he could do what he wanted. "I don't understand what's so glorious about war… Soldiers die fighting against someone they hate that they don't even know with weapons that they don't even understand…" The first part of her comment was just an aloud musing but the second part was a subtle hint about her suspicions. She knew there was something going on with the Tesseract and S.H.I.E.L.D. that didn't include renewable energy.

The car was silent for a while but Fury finally answered her, not addressing her hint but instead her musing. "'The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him'… G.K. Chesterton. I love this world – and I think that you do, too. I see the way you look at this city, the way you have all of those pictures of your old home." He was right; Ylva had a box of photos from her village under a floorboard in the apartment that S.H.I.E.L.D. kept for her in Hell's Kitchen, the one that she almost never got to visit. But when she did, she would go straight to that floorboard – but as far as she knew she was the only one that knew about those. She was pissed but she wasn't surprised; she was more than used to S.H.I.E.L.D. invading her privacy.

Ylva bit her lip and glared at Fury. "Cameras?"

"Only in the main room," Fury answered simply. Ylva let out an exasperated sigh and he shook his head. "Now, don't be like that – it's for your protection and the protection of the agency; what if someone goes and tears up your apartment for information? It was necessary."

"Remind me to have sex with someone on my couch. Then maybe you and all of S.H.I.E.L.D. will have second thoughts about invading my privacy," she hissed. Of course she was bluffing – her love life was a bit limited nowadays. The only relationships she had lasted about two weeks and most of them had occurred when she was in her early twenties. By the time she had turned 24, she had just given up on having a real relationship. That, and Ylva was way too self-conscious/self-respecting to have sex in front of _anyone_. "How does that sound, hm?"

"Go ahead," Fury shrugged. "Security techs work long hours – I'm sure that what _you're _talking about won't bother them too much." He was baiting her, the bastard. Waving him off, she brought their conversation back to the start.

"Anyway, I'm against bringing Rogers onto this."

Fury laughed at her. "You'll warm up to him eventually… Give the guy a break. You're a bit intense."

Ylva stared at him incredulously.

"It's true." Fury seemed annoyed by her stare.

"You are a super spy; your name _literally _means anger; you're 6'2"; you wear an eye patch (which I'm not really sure is necessary)… and _I'm _intense?" Her right eyebrow almost set altitude records with that one.

"Shut up and be nice," Nick Fury told her as he pulled in front of a shabby-looking gym. It was old, Ylva could tell, with a brick façade and bars on the windows that must have been older than she was. It seemed out of place, even in the more historic part of Brooklyn; it seemed like it was going to disappear beneath the large skyscrapers in the city skyline. The world had grown up around it and this little building had stayed the same.

"How do you know he'll be here?" She asked quietly as she surveyed the empty street. Fury just grabbed the file out of the car and looked at her, trying to communicate something that Ylva's paltry social ability could not pick up on.

As they walked in they heard a loud smash coming from the near-back of the training area, making Ylva's hand go straight to her holster – but Fury put his hand on her shoulder. "Insomnia. You're not the only one who's frustrated all of the time." A pang of guilt reverberated through the young woman's chest as she nodded in understanding and lifted her hand off of her gun.

It quickly became apparent that the smash that they had heard was from Steve Rogers hitting a punching bag so hard that it came detached from its chain and sailed across the room. _Been there_, Ylva thought mildly. Now she felt really guilty – it was obvious that Rogers hadn't acclimated to the times; he still felt misplaced. She understood that feeling. When they entered he was mounting another punching bag that had four others waiting in line behind it.

"Trouble sleeping?" Fury liked to emerge from shadows in this manner – wittily – but even Ylva thought that this was a tad insensitive considering what the Eagle Scout had been through; she gave Fury a death glare but he ignored her, watching Roger's reaction instead.

Steve took his time mounting another punching bag before answering him warily while returning to his gym duffle.

"Slept for seventy years, Sir. I think I've had my fill." Unwrapping his knuckles, Rogers seemed to be ready to leave – probably not because he was tired of exercise but because he didn't want to deal with them. It was obvious. Ylva not only had 'been there' – she was perpetually 'there'. Fury didn't seem to get the message or maybe he did and just easily ignored it. The young woman had to hand it to him: he was a man on a mission, that was for sure.

"Then you should be out, celebrating, seeing the world."

Rogers stopped his unwrapping and looked at Fury with a somber and bitter look plastered on his face from too much recent use. "When I went under, the world was at war. I wake up — they say we won. They didn't say what we lost." The message was poignant. _Dammit, Eagle Scout is deeper than I thought_.

Fury didn't let the poignancy sink in before he said, "We've made some mistakes along the way, some very recently."

Rogers seemed to be getting restless, and rightly so. "Are you here with a mission, sir?"

"I am." Fury proceeded forward towards Rogers, Ylva looming in his shadow.

"Trying to get me back in the world?"

Taking the folder about the Tesseract out, Fury held it in front of Rogers – almost like he was trying to hook a fish with a particularly delicious piece of bait. "Trying to save it."

Rogers bit the line, tugging only gently at first but when he finally looked up at them, staring first at Fury and then at Ylva, she could see as plain as day that he was done for – he was in. He seemed a bit taken aback by Fury's words and the folder but still completely rapt. "Hydra's secret weapon…"

Fury nodded. "Howard Stark fished that out of the ocean when he was looking for you. He thought what we think. The Tesseract could be the key to unlimited sustainable energy. That's something the world sorely needs."

"Or," Ylva finally chimed in, her voice tinted with her usual sarcasm. "The key to endless destruction. And guess who lost it?" It was now Fury's turn to give the death glare. Ylva just shrugged and pretended that she had no idea what she'd done wrong, even when she knew for a fact that Fury hated, hated, _hated _it when she made light of a decidedly dark situation. But that was how she dealt with dark things – by making fun of them.

"Los – Who took it from you?" Rogers was obviously alarmed but still retained a militancy that only Captain America could uphold. Ylva ruffled her dark hair yet again and sighed.

"Loki. That's what he calls himself... But I am currently compiling a list of far more appropriately annoying names for the bastard."

"He's not from around here. There's a lot we'll have to bring you up to speed on if you're in. The world has gotten even stranger than you already know," Fury added with a momentary glance towards Ylva during the 'stranger than you know' bit.

Ylva hissed lowly at her boss, "Unnecessary, Mother Goose." This earned her an odd look from Rogers. "I'm… also not from around here. But I'm on your team. That is, of course, as long as my programming doesn't mal-mal-malfunction." Ylva couldn't resist twitching emotionlessly to add flavor to her witticism. She saw the smack in the head that Fury was about to dish out before it even landed but decided to let him win this round.

Shaking his head slightly, Rogers grimaced at the pair. "'Stranger than I already know…' At this point, I doubt anything would surprise me."

Fury folded his arms in front of him and smirked a knowing smile. "Ten bucks says you're wrong," he said confidently (as if Fury could say anything that wasn't brimming with the assuredness of God). Ylva enjoyed watching Fury make bets when she was a child but it got to a point where she realized that he just never lost – it took the fun out of it all. Rogers seemed even less amused at his gambling than she was, walking past them towards the door. Finally it was Fury who was the one talking to someone's back. "There's a debriefing packet waiting for you back at your apartment… Is there anything you can tell us about the Tesseract that we ought to know now?"

A pregnant pause filled the air of the old gym as Rogers turned around to look at them. "You should have left it in the ocean." He turned back around and exited without another word.

Ylva inhaled and exhaled deeply for a moment, contemplating the words that sounded so like her own. She didn't want to admit that the full implications of losing the Tesseract had started to fully hit her in this moment so instead she just walked over to the edge of the boxing ring and sat down. "And Captain America has left the building… I told you that he might not want to get involved." Fury just smirked and walked in front of her, towering over her sitting form.

"And I'm telling you that there's no way in hell that he won't – which is why you are going to meet up with Coulson and wait for him to realize that while I go and get some things sorted out on the Helicarrier."

"Normally," Ylva sighed. "I would argue with you… But we both know that that would be an argument that I just wouldn't win. What should I do?"

Fury started to walk out to the car, gesturing for her to follow him. As he clambered into the driver's seat, Ylva waited patiently for him to answer her – it wasn't like she was in a hurry. "You and Coulson are going to be staying at your place; the debriefing packet I mentioned to him says to meet both of you in front of your building at 5:30 a.m.… Are you up for it?"

"Do I have a choice?" Ylva asked frankly.

"Nope."

…

Just like Fury had predicted, Rogers had shown up at the front entrance to her apartment building at exactly 5:30 a.m. on the dot. Ylva and Coulson had then escorted him to an airstrip somewhat out of town where they had boarded a Quinjet with relatively little fuss. Since she knew that Coulson had a man-crush on the Captain, Ylva tried to give them a little privacy by trying to sleep on the way there – or at least appearing to; she was always a light sleeper, so she rarely full-out slept, instead just opting to close her eyes and regulate her breathing so the two could talk without her interference. But by two hours in, the two hadn't exchanged many words.

The pilot broke the silence eventually. "We're about ten minutes out from home base, sir, ma'am."

Finally fed up with the awkwardness of the ride, Ylva 'woke up', grabbed the tech pad out of her bag and sat down beside Rogers. She pulled up a video on the glassy screen with a little trouble and handed it to the man. "I thought you might like to see this… That man," she pointed to a man in the video with dark hair and a seemingly mild disposition. "Is Dr. Bruce Banner. The top expert in Gamma radiation in the world… I think you've heard of him by now." As she said this, Banner shifted into the monstrous giant known as 'the Hulk'.

Rogers' brow furrowed. "So, this Doctor Banner was trying to replicate the serum they used on me?"

"A lot of people were," Coulson jumped in. "You were the world's first superhero. Banner thought Gamma radiation might hold the key to unlocking Erskine's original formula."

"Didn't really go his way, did it?"

"Not so much. When he's not that thing though, guy's like a Stephen Hawking," Coulson said dryly, receiving a look of confusion out of Rogers – _Poor guy. His whole life is anachronistic now, _Ylva thought as Coulson continued. "He's like a- smart person… I gotta say, it's an honor to meet you, officially. I sort of met you, I mean, I watched you while you were sleeping," Ylva was torn between being horrified or laughing. "I mean- I was- I was present, while you were unconscious- from the ice. You know it's really – it's just a – just a huge honor to have you onboard – it's..."

Rogers seemed to shake it off. "Well, I hope I'm the man for the job."

"S.H.I.E.L.D. seems to think so," Ylva said, attempting to be reassuring. Coulson tried to redeem himself.

"We made some modifications to the uniform. I had a little design input."

Looking between them, Rogers seemed a bit disillusioned. "The uniform? Aren't the stars and stripes a little old-fashioned?" Ylva chuckled darkly.

"It's that or a cat suit. Just ask me or Romanoff. Besides… It's not that bad. Coulson did a top-notch job."

Coulson shook his head humbly before adding, "Everything that's happening, the things that are about to come to light, people might just need a little old-fashioned..."

"We're here." Ylva said when she caught sight of the Helicarrier's deck where she saw a certain redhead awaiting their arrival. As soon they landed and the ramp descended, Ylva nodded to Natasha and said quietly, "That was one of the most entertaining/horrifying flights of my life. I had no idea that Coulson was _that much _of a fan boy of the Eagle Scout."

Natasha grinned at her. "Ask about the trading cards… Agent Coulson." Ylva turned to see Coulson heading their way with Rogers in tow.

"Agent Romanoff – Captain Rogers."

Eagle Scout nodded to Natasha in a way far more formal than Ylva had. "Ma'am."

"Hi," she said simply to Rogers before turning to Coulson and Ylva. "They need both of you on the bridge; they're starting the face trace."

"See you there," Coulson said. "Valkyrie, let's go." Ylva held up one finger pleadingly and rushed over to the not-too-'hulking' (haha) figure of who she recognized as Bruce Banner.

"Doctor Banner?" She caught his attention and bobbed her head at him in lieu of shaking his hand. "I'm Agent Ylva. It's good to meet you – I'm one of the agents you'll be working with."

"Nice… Nice to meet you, too," he mumbled somewhat distractedly. "Is this a – Is this a submarine?" He had noticed the slight descending movement in the deck.

"Ah," Ylva grinned like a Lewis Carroll character. "I think you should ask Natasha – she would kill me if I told you. Again, good to meet you." She jogged to catch up with Coulson.

By the time they got to the bridge, the Helicarrier was already airborne. Ylva went straight to talk with Hill, leaving Coulson to Fury. "So how long have we been running the face trace? Nice suit, by the way." She gestured jokingly to the woman's fitted jumpsuit that was near-identical to her own. Hill smiled slightly before getting back to business.

"The trace has been active for almost 25 minutes. It took a lot of calibrating on tech's part – we don't have a lot of images of this Loki."

Ylva shrugged tightly. "Usually I'd say that you should be happy about that since he has the face appeal of Sting but I can see how that could be frustrating in this situation." The two women discussed the technicalities of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s current endeavor until Banner, Romanoff, and Rogers showed up on the bridge – and by then the craft had become 'indivisible'.

Fury addressed the group after collecting his ten dollars from Rogers. "Gentlemen. Doctor, thank you for coming."

"Thank you for asking nicely," Banner said as he continued to examine the bridge. "So… How long am I staying?"

"Once we get the Tesseract back – then you're in the wind again," Fury replied. Banner didn't look too assured or even relieved.

"Well, where are you with that?"

"We're sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet," Coulson replied crisply. "Cell phones, laptops, if it's connected to a satellite, it's eyes and ears for us." Ylva looked over at Rogers and shook her head.

"Yeah. And if it's not operating in an ethically grey area, it's not S.H.I.E.L.D."

Romanoff seemed displeased with the idea for a different reason. "It's still not gonna find them in time."

"You have to narrow your field," Banner explained to them. "How many Spectrometers do you have access to?"

Fury had this look on his face that screamed 'challenge accepted' as he said, "How many are there?" Ylva cocked an eyebrow at him and leaned on one of the railings; sometimes she felt like Fury went out of the way to do things just so he could impress people with his agency's resources. But Banner didn't seem impressed, just focused.

"Call every lab you know. Tell them to put the Spectrometers on the roof and calibrate them for Gamma rays. I'll rough out a tracking algorithm, basic cluster recognition. At least we could rule out a few places. Do you have somewhere for me to work?"

"Agent Romanoff," Fury barked towards the red-head. "Would you show Doctor Banner to his laboratory, please?"

"You're gonna love it, Doc. We got all the toys."

As soon as they were out of sight, Ylva turned to Fury. "Show-off."


	5. Shot n' Thrilled

******Salutations and congratulations for sticking it out this far.** Thanks to xXxDragonxPhoenixXx and Sam0728 for your reviews and follows. You are awesome possums.  


**Review, review, review, pretty please. Give me incentive to procrastinate more on my real work.**

Ylva wasn't big on science or computers or _technology_ in general; it just wasn't her specialty and it didn't interest her too much – it was only things like what Selvig and Banner researched that really piqued her attention but sadly, she didn't come into contact with their work unless Fury let her. Plus she was shit when it came to working with computers – for all of her intelligence, she just couldn't manage technology. She mostly stuck to the more physical aspects of S.H.I.E.L.D. like espionage, threat elimination, and on-site investigation. She sometimes even taught a yoga class to the recruits when she had the time. But today was very different; she was on a computer, helping the techies on the bridge while Banner was off in his lab being a scientist and while Rogers was not too far off in the center of the bridge being fawned over by Coulson. She had to admit it to herself, it was pretty great when Coulson was this excited about something that wasn't a new gadget – usually he was all business about everything.

The young woman was smiling to herself as she heard Coulson asking the great and powerful Captain America for his autographs on his 'near mint, slight foxing around the edges' trading cards when Agent Sitwell announced the new information. "We got a hit. Sixty seven percent match… Wait. Cross-match, seventy nine percent." She peered over to his screen and looked at the grainy image that was definitely the Norse God of Mischief wearing a suit and scarf.

"Location?" Coulson abandoned his attempt with Captain America and strode towards Sitwell.

"Stuttgart, Germany. Twenty eight, Königstraße… He's not exactly hiding."

"Stuttgart?" Ylva asked. "I went there with my father as a child. Königstraße is one of the main streets of the town – tons of cultural institutions like museums, theaters, and opera houses… Hvorfor i helvete skulle han være der?" she wondered to herself in Norwegian. This was a rare occurrence, something she only did when a thought seemed so out of place that it needed to be verbalized to make any real sense of it – this was one of those times. _After all, why the hell would a Norse god want to go on a stroll down a German street that was practically centered on culture? Get a cup of tea and catch a play?_ Ylva snorted to herself, oblivious to the fact that her mental joke was as good as her technology skills. Coulson, who was the only one who could speak any Norwegian in the Helicarrier, nodded at her and turned to Fury.

"Sir?"

"Captain," Fury sighed. "You're up."

Ylva's brow arched, "What should I do sir?" Fury just smirked at her and Ylva felt her stomach twist with a premonition that she would not like what he was going to have her do.

…

"This is an awful plan." There was a mix of shell-shock and horror on her face as she stared between Fury and Hill. Ylva continued to glare as she continued, "You're telling me that – and correct me if I'm wrong here – instead of using my paramilitary training, my extensive knowledge of on-the-ground tactics, and my… other assets… that _I _am not going to be beating up Little Miss Mischief with the 'team'. No, _I _have to plod on into that Stuttgart and lure him out with my," she shuttered spitefully. "_feminine appeal?_ I'm going like an undernourished 14-year-old boy whose sisters tackled him into one of their prom dresses and you're telling me I have to bring on the charm?" Her voice rose to an alarming level, attracting the attention of most passing agents. What could she say? She was angry and distressed – surprise, surprise.

"Pretty much, yeah. After what happened at the research facility, I don't want you to strain yourself too much." Fury looked almost amused. She was perfectly aware that he must have just baiting her about yet another one of her aversions – that of formal wear. This, she expected out of Fury but what she hadn't supposed was that he would be almost punishing her for her failure in such a demeaning way; usually, if she made a mistake, he would just throw her back into the ring.

Ylva stared at him again. "HAHAHAHAHA – No. That is not going to happen; that has been done in literally every bad spy movie ever and it is just an excuse to see Angelina Jolie's tits and make me feel ridiculously uncomfortable since I pretty much lack both the charm and cleavage to successfully execute that plan. Give me floods, give me plagues, give me _anything besides that_. I will wear my civilian clothing and pretend to be a photographer for the event and I will attempt to draw out the greasy-haired sociopath while _not _wearing heels and a push-up bra," she looked down at her feet and mumbled, "Besides, everyone knows that I look ridiculous in dresses..." It had always been something that she was secretly and terribly self-conscious of. Sure, she had curves but she was so small and lean that someone would only be able to see them if she was stark-naked or something of the like; her figure could have been called boyish if it had not been for her decidedly feminine face. She looked back up to Fury and spoke apprehensively, with a tone that was tinted with shame and self-disappointment. "Plus, I wasn't prepared then. I'll do better this time, sir – just let me get Loki away from civilians my way." Fury didn't seem to be affected at all by her honest and subtly self-deprecating plea but his aide seemed to make up for his apparent indifference.

Hill decided to stick up for Ylva in this instance. "Sir, her plan seems like an acceptable replacement to the original – and besides. It might not be bad having actual, high-quality photographs of Loki for future reference." Fury looked somewhat betrayed at her words but hid it well.

"Fine. Just remember your priorities," he said stiffly. Ylva couldn't help but be slightly offended at the implication that she would forget what her priorities were but she decided not to pester him more, especially since he had just let her off the hook.

"Yes, sir." Ylva actually smiled directly at him as she ran to put on some of her own clothes. She really, really enjoyed wearing her own clothes and dressing how she wanted – it was a rare treat for her to be given the opportunity to fix her failings while wearing an outfit that didn't looked like it belonged in a DC comic. Her joviality would have worried Fury if he didn't know that it was just her being happy about redeeming herself _to _herself.

…

The best kind of adrenaline pumped through her system as she discretely strolled across the stone plaza towards the opera house that was hosting the gala which S.H.I.E.L.D. thought would be receiving a dangerous and uninvited guest at any moment. She looked like any other 20-something from this stretch of Europe with her leather pants and motorcycle boots, topped with a soft white sweater. Before she left she fastened her dark hair in a loose, messy chignon that had innumerable near-black and soft curls sticking out every which way. She looked appropriately artistic to pass.

The guards at the door did not question her when she came through the massive brass doors and flashed them a press pass and a shiny new camera; she didn't seem like a threat to them – she was far too delicate-looking for that. Weaving through the great marble pillars, she sought out her target but he was nowhere to be seen – but she knew she could safely assume that a show boater like 'Loki of Asgard who is burdened with a glorious purpose' would not want to fade into the shadows like she wanted to so he was probably just out of her eyeline.

Suddenly, Ylva got the very distinct sense that there was someone right behind her (probably a creepy old German man with far too much money and far too little propriety); on any normal day, this would have meant jamming her elbow into the lurker's solar plexus. Although completely aware that her habit of physical aggression when it came to potential threats/touchers was untoward and silly, she could not bring herself to rectify it; she was not a fan of people sneaking up on her or getting too close to her. But this wasn't a normal day – not by far. She needed to remain discrete and normal as possible until she had to make her big move. That was the smart thing to do.

And nothing screamed 'normal' than a pretty little photographer accidentally bumping into whoever was hovering just behind her – it would give her an excuse to run off in 'embarrassment' and continue on her mission. She put her camera up to her eye and took a step back as if she was trying to get a better angle – since she was artsy and all that jazz – before 'accidentally' running into something… very hard. Like a wall almost. _That's odd._ She spun around to say in a very innocent and unassuming manner, "Oh, mein lieber! Ich bin so leid!" But she hit her nose against someone's very hard chest as she turned. The deep smell of something heady and incendiary filled her senses. It was enough to knock anyone off balance but she tried to push through it as her gaze slowly turned up to see not an old German creeper but instead someone far more vexing – Loki. _He smells really good for a pyschopath._

She hadn't realized when she was trying to crush his trachea with her scissor-hold how disturbingly tall the God of Mischeif was. It was almost as unsettling as the smile that had now painted itself across his face. Her breath caught in her throat for a split second for no reason at all; she wasn't afraid for her own life and she certainly wasn't intimidated by this man. She stood her ground and smiled back at him, trying not to draw too much attention as she spoke to him in a tittering

"Hello again, Agent Ylva," he slithered his arm around her waist and drew them both into a very deserted hallway as if he was a perfect gentleman. She was aware that to a bystander, it would just look like a couple sneaking off to have a little 'chat' in a more private locale. It wasn't a good place to be, but she supposed that as long as he wasn't out among the civilians, killing everyone on a murderous rampage, everything was fine. Loki proceeded to push her against the wall and put his hands on either side of her head, leaning over her like a forbidding statue of some tyrannical dictator.

She was terrified out of her mind but simply smiled back at him, "Hello, Fido." Suddenly, one of his large hands was on her neck, slowly tightening.

"My name is _Loki_ and you will address me as such," He leaned in until he was mere inches from her face. "You'd have to be very thick to forget my name… And you don't look that stupid. Weak. Somewhat pathetic… but not stupid."

"Ah, but there's the catch," she smiled in an attempt to keep him occupied, glancing to the end of the hall that lead into the main room. Everything sounded fine. "I probably don't look stupid because _I _don't feather my hair… Unlike _some _people I know, Farrah Fawcett."

He looked confused at the reference that was an obviously a haphazardly veiled insult. She heard some commotion outside in the main hall but when she tried to turn her head, Loki stopped her. She suddenly realized that there was something off about this whole situation. She had made a mistake, a stupid, stupid mistake – she needed to get back to the main room. He must have been working with someone. _Shit…_ Loki put his cold free hand against her cheek and brushed a curl out of her eyes that had been knocked into her face by his force. "Are you afraid, little girl? Hm? Not nearly enough. Soon you and the rest of the world will be subjugated to me – your ruler, your king," He got even closer to her. She could feel the warmth of his breath on her cheek. "And there is _nothing _you can do to stop me." She tried to writhe out of his grasp. But he held on tight. She started to panic for a moment.

_Time to change tactics._

Ylva just smiled. "But I can do this:" With that, the small young woman landed and expertly aimed kick right between his legs. He moaned loudly and immediately dropped her.

"Bitch." He groaned as she pulled out her gun and started to run down the hallway to the growing commotion in the main room – but suddenly he was right in front of her. _Impossible_. She turned to look back where he used to be but that proved to be no small mistake as she felt a knife being rammed into her gut with perfect force that only a genetically superior being could muster; she crumpled to the ground in the fetal position.

Looking up to his dark figure and realized that he was starting to sort of… flicker. "Fuck," She moaned. "You're a double." She fired her gun at his head and the doppelganger flickered back into nonexistence. She looked down at the stab wound and fell out of consciousness.

Momentarily, that is.

She stirred after what she approximated was 128 seconds, her head aching with rage. _He stabbed me… I _hate _being stabbed_, she thought angrily as she sprinted through the hallway, finally reaching the main room. After a quick survey of the damage she ran over to an inert man who was strewn across a marble slab like a sacrificial lamb; one of his eyes was missing. _Damn..._ She ran her fingers through her dark hair in frustration and fury before hearing the screams of terror from outside.

Upon exiting the building she saw what she amounted to be a truly horrific sight: a hundred or so civilians kneeling before Loki who now sported his traditional Asgardian wear as well as the scepter. She rolled behind a statue and watched as he delivered a revoltingly self-gratifying monologue.

"Is not this simpler? Is this not your natural state? It's the unspoken truth of humanity, that you crave subjugation. The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel." Loki smiled as he walked through the kneeling crowd – then something happened that made Ylva's heart swell – and as cheesy as that sounded, it was true as anything that Ylva had ever really definitively felt; an elderly man stood up alone in the crowd in a grand gesture of resistance. If she had been human, she would have been very proud to be one at this moment. She often wondered if her race – whatever they may have been – was ever so brave or selfless as humans had the capacity to be.

"Not to men like you." The elder said with an aged dignity that the Norse God of Mischief seemed to find funny. It burned Ylva that he could be so unappreciative of the true greatness in the older man's act of defiance.

"There are no men like me," Loki simpered

"There are _always _men like you."

Loki seemed to falter for only a split second before regaining his composure and pointing his scepter at the old man. "Look to your elder, people. Let him be an example." He was going to execute him.

_Hell no_. Ylva rushed forward to stop him but before she could reach him he had already blasted a beam of concussive energy at the elder – but something moved between the two, forcing the beam to ricochet off it and knock Loki over.

It was Rogers… Or Captain America. Or Rogers avec tights. Take your pick. "You know, the last time I was in Germany I saw a man standing above everyone else; we ended up disagreeing." Ylva smirked at the man's witty entrance – noting that perhaps it was time that she came up with a few lines of her own. Loki didn't seem so amused as he straightened up.

"The Soldier; the man out of time."

Steve remained in a heroic stance as he said, "Trust me, the only one outta time is you." With that Natasha's Quinjet descended and she whipped out some very big guns.

"Loki, drop the weapon and stand down – " Natasha's voice commanded over the intercom system. But Loki wasn't having it, shooting at her from the ground, prompting Steve to run towards him and attempt to take him down; Loki sent him across the courtyard before the God walked forward and put the tip of his scepter on the nape of Steve's neck.

"Kneel."

Steve rolled out from under it, jumped into the air and kicked Loki across his smug face, "Not today." They continued to fight until Steve was thrown yet again. "Valkyrie? Tag in."

"Much obliged, Eagle Scout." She somersaulted towards Loki and pulled out her large serrated knife before hitting the ground on her feet, crouching down and readying herself to avenge her white sweater that Loki had stained with blood when he stabbed her. _The bastard._

Loki's brow furrowed at her arrival and eased animation. "I thought I killed you."

"And I thought that no one would be enough of a douchebag to preach/condescend to a crowd of kneeling _Germans_ in _English_," she shrugged. "I guess we were both mistaken." She charged towards him, dodging a blast from his scepter. Skidding forward on the ground, she swept his legs, causing him to tumble over – unfortunately for her, he grabbed her ankle on the way down, making her fall flat on her back beside him. She wasn't having it.

Ylva rolled on top of him with her knife in hand, attempting to pin his much larger frame under hers. Fail. Loki blasted her in the chest, sending her flying. _This isn't looking too good_, she noted as she attempted to rise from the bushes she had been catapulted into.

Then it started to sound good. Literally. ACDC's "Shoot to Thrill" started to ring out through the Quinjet's PA system. _What the hell is Natasha doing up there? _She thought as she jumped back onto her feet and shifted back into a ready position. Suddenly, Ylva heard the consistent roar of a well-tuned engine playing underneath the music that was blaring on the speakers –_Of course it's him, _Ylva smirked and shook her head as she turned her attention away from Loki, who she now knew was going to be dealt with shortly by Tony fucking Stark. As Ylva gruffly pulled Rogers to his feet, the billionaire vigilante (no, the other one) shot across the sky down to the square and blasted Loki square in the chest—which, not surprisingly, gave Ylva more satisfaction than she'd had in what seemed like forever. He landed on the steps and pointed a ridiculous amount of firearms at the god who had been knocked on his ass. Thin but strong hands rose into the air as his Asgardian gear started to fade.

"Make a move, Reindeer Games."

Needless to say, he didn't.


	6. Monster

**Heya. Again, thanks for sticking with me thus far. I really appreciate it! xXxDragonxPhoenixXx , thanks for your second review; I hope I made her tough enough in this chapter. Angeltears666, thank you so much for the encouragement. Getting reviews definitely prompts me to update more often.**

**So if you like, tell me - also feel free to make suggestions or (constructive) critiques. Much love.**

* * *

The burden of escorting the now-neutralized Loki of Asgard in one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Quinjets fell upon the quartet that was sent to neutralize him on the ground in the first place; Ylva thought that this was mildly unfair but she didn't complain. She rather liked Stark – most of the time. She had first met him earlier in the year

Rogers and Stark had decided to flank her at either side, effectively wedging her in between them; they all sat opposite to Loki in the small aircraft that Natasha was expertly piloting. The two men and one woman sat still for a very long time, glowering at Loki in silence. It was awkward.

"Hey, Tinkerbelle," Stark nudged her like a six-year-old boy might to his best friend. "How're you holding up? Your sweater is, er… bleeding."

Ylva grinded her teeth as the young woman stared back to Loki. "That's because _someone _sent a damn doppelganger to _stab_ me." Loki smiled brightly at her.

"You kicked me in the balls." Translation: you fucking deserved it.

Ylva held out her hands as if she was cradling an imaginary bouquet of flowers. "Do you see them?" Loki arched his eyebrow at her – which reminded her of someone she knew but couldn't quite remember who it was. She leaned in closer and whispered loudly, "They're all of the non-existent fucks I give."

Stark snorted and Rogers made a bewildered sort of gasp at her language – he was a PG sort of guy. They sat in silence for a little while longer before Steve cried out in a sudden (if not belated) realization, "Wait, he _stabbed _you?"

"Yes. He jammed a knife into my gut."

She heard a melancholic sigh from across the way. "Apparently not with enough force." Ylva decided to be the bigger man and ignored him, turning her attentions back to Rogers.

"With _plenty _of force. It's rare for something to penetrate my skin like that…" She would have elaborated on that sentence but as far as orders went, she was strictly prohibited from discussing the finer details of her abilities – it wasn't that important anyway, especially considering how useless she had been lately. Glancing over to Loki to examine him once again, she noticed a strange sort of look on his face; it was like a mix of resentment and intrigue. It was odd. Then something crossed her mind that should have crossed it ages ago – Loki had back up; he wasn't cocky for no reason – he was far more intelligent than that. _Why did he go to the opera house alone? He wasn't surprised that I was there so he must have known we were coming. Why didn't he have someone there to aid him? It was all so… _She struggled to find a word that wasn't 'easy'.

Looking over to Rogers and then to Stark, Ylva stood up and grabbed her leather pack. "Alright, Gents. I'm going to change my shirt. Over there," She tried to communicate with her tone that she needed to speak to them farther back in the cabin but they just looked at her thickly. "Would you like to accompany me?"

Stark hopped up immediately and clapped his hands together. "Lead the way, Buffy the Vampire Slayer," he turned towards Rogers and patted his own thighs as if he was trying to get a puppy to come to him. "Let's go with the nice lady." Rogers seemed to purse his lips in annoyance but complied.

Ylva pulled off her white sweater, examining it sorrowfully before chucking it at Loki's head. Reaching into her leather pack, she rummaged for a moment before retrieving one of her favorite shirts. Rogers and Stark stood awkwardly beside her (or at least Rogers did, politely averting his eyes even though she was wearing what amounted to a flesh-toned sports bra – and let's be honest, there wasn't much to see anyway) as she put the t-shirt on. While still submerged in the folds of the cotton-blend she noticed that her wound, while still open and red, was healing already and was (thankfully) not gushing blood but she'd still have to wrap it when she got to the Helicarrier. As soon as she surfaced from the fabric canopy, she marked Stark's rather blatant 'Judging You' face. "What?"

With a grand sweeping gesture of his hand at her torso, she looked down at the shirt. It was like something one would buy at a gas station off of a major highway, a cotton-blend number with a large wolf on the front – but even so, she liked it. There was a brief exchange of battling looks between the two before Stark yielded. "So what would you like to speak to us about – Hey, Reindeer Games!" he barked over at Loki. "If you're going to stare at her ass you might want to be a little more discrete about it. Live and learn." Ylva spun around to see Loki looking very offended at the mere suggestion that he would be gaping at her ass.

Ylva punched Stark on the arm. "Cut it out. He was obviously not ogling me." The thought was almost amusing – she didn't really go out enough to be rubbernecked and most of the men she came in contact with either had known her since she was a kid or had been intimidated by Fury or herself out of it. It wasn't that she wasn't attractive – in fact it was just the opposite in a very major way (even though she was, as per usual, clueless about it).

"He was staring. It's true." Natasha called back to them, a flicker of amusement lingering in her voice. Ylva wasn't the type to have blushed or get embarrassed. She was the type to get pissed. Apparently, Rogers was offended, too.

"Apologize to the lady. That, er, _action _is rather… personal." Rogers said gallantly, his 40's sensibilities shining through with a glint of brotherly protectiveness. It was apparent to Ylva that Rogers (while annoying the hell out of her) was still, at heart, a good guy, and acted how she imagined a brother would even when she _absolutely _didn't deserve it.

Loki decided to reply to this one with a broad smile – obviously happy that he had managed to offend people. "Well, I have been between her thighs. Couldn't get much more _personal _than that, Soldier." There was a beat of awkward silence as all eyes turned to Ylva.

"Scissor hold." She shrugged in an attempt to mask the outrage she felt at his suggestiveness – as if; he meant to rub them all the wrong way but she refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing her anger on her face. Instead she just walked over and stood in front of Loki, then briefly turning to Rogers to say, "Thank you for asking him to apologize, Cap. But this isn't the 1940's anymore," She turned back to Loki, leaning down to look Loki in the eye. "Staring at my ass is a right reserved for people who aren't complete and utter dicks as well as people who don't _stab me_. So since I didn't get to do this to the _actual _you in Germany, I can't think of a better time for me to show you how I really feel about you." She kicked him in between his legs yet again. Hard. Hard enough to make both Rogers and Stark wince and for Loki to double over. Sure, it felt like a cheap shot to Ylva but she didn't regret it. She _really _hated him.

Returning to Rogers and Steve, she started to speak to them in a hushed and serious tone. "Did you notice anything… off about Loki's capture?"

"Yes, ma'am. I did… and I don't like it." Rogers seemed very concerned.

"What?" Stark started in on Rogers now. "Rock of Ages giving up so easily?"

"I don't remember it being ever that easy. This guy packs a wallop." Roger's statement confirmed Ylva's theory that there definitely was something very wrong with the picture. Stark didn't seem overly concerned.

"Still, you are pretty spry, for an older fellow. What's your thing, Pilates?"

"What?"

"It's like calisthenics. You might have missed a couple things, you know, doing time as a Capsicle." The remark seemed fairly harmless to Ylva but it seemed to set Rogers off.

"Fury didn't tell me he was calling you in," He turned to glare at Ylva. "And neither did you." She dimmed in a secret disappointment that Rogers didn't trust her enough to assume the best; to assume that she _didn't _know Fury was calling in Stark until the last minute – which was the truth. There weren't a lot of people who did trust her when they considered her inhuman heritage and she had learned to accept that… but Rogers knew nothing about that. She had hoped that he trusted her at least a little. Apparently that wasn't the case.

"Yeah. Well from the look on her face there's a lot of things Fury doesn't tell any of us." Stark returned to his seat as guilt drew hard lines on Roger's face as he looked at Ylva.

Running her hands through her hair, she started back to her seat as well until she felt an apologetic hand on her shoulder; she shrugged it off to face Rogers. "What you don't realize is that Fury keeps a lot of secrets. Hell, I'm one of them… But don't assume that means that he tells me shit because he doesn't even trust me enough to let me live my own life. So don't be angry that he left you in the dark on this one," She sat down in her seat to calmly look up at him. "I'm a monster, Rogers. I'm _always _in the dark. That's just how it is with S.H.I.E.L.D. so you might as well accept it. It'll save you a lot of trouble." In all honesty, her own words saddened her immensely. But she didn't show it. She had accepted the truth that she had been raised to believe that she was normal when in all truth and fact she was what people told their kids about in bedtime stories. Inhuman. Freak. Monster. Ylva was drawn out of her own thoughts when she felt a set of dark green eyes upon her; she looked up to see Loki staring at her – not with a look of resentment or intrigue or even hate. She didn't know how he was looking at her but if she was perhaps more aware of who (or what) Loki really was, she would have realized it was a look of understanding.

A flash of light burst through the sky. Rogers turned to Loki. "What's the matter, scared of a little lightning?" Loki just looked up towards the ceiling and said simply:

"I'm not overly fond of what follows..."

As soon as a clap of thunder rang out, the Quinjet was rocked violently._ As if something… Landed on top of us? _Ylva thought as she was jostled by the tremor. Suddenly, Stark jumped into action mode, his mask descending to cover his face as the emotionless slits that served as his technologically-enhanced sight lit up with a seriously 'in-it-to-win-it' glow. Then, he hit the badge that opened the ramp that should (in Ylva's opinion) only be opened when it was a good couple hundred feet closer to the ground. Rogers seemed to share his opinion.

"_What _are you doing?" he shouted over the wind that was whipping through the Quinjet. If there was ever a slim chance of Stark condescending to answer him, it was destroyed as a bulky, blonde blur hurdled in, pushing Stark out of the way like a rarely read edition of _Wuthering Heights_, and grabbing Loki before returning into the overcast and darkened sky.

Stark growled through his mask as he lifted himself up. "And now there's _that_ guy!"

"Another Asgardian?" Natasha pitched to the three who hovered near the edge of the ramp, looking down for any sight of the predicament that they were now plagued with.

"That guy's a friendly?" Rogers asked incredulously.

Ylva squinted to try and catch a glimpse of the two. "Judging by the length of his hair, Cobain probably isn't too into labels," she simpered ironically. What could she say? This situation made her feel especially snarky.

"Nice," Stark nodded to her – he was a man who could appreciate snark, considering that was the major component of his personality as well. "Anyway," he continued, "It doesn't matter. If he frees Loki or kills him, the Tesseract's lost." He edged towards the end of the ramp.

"Stark," Rogers interjected. "We need a plan of attack." Ylva had to add even more snark – this was stressing her out.

"Plan?" she snickered. "I laugh in the face of planning! Ha-ha-ha!"

Stark wasn't having it again. "Well, contrary to popular opinion – ahem, Mini-Mouse –" Ylva flipped him the bird. "I have a plan. Attack."

* * *

**REVIEW, my minions. **_**Review. **_


	7. The Hammer

**Thank you for reviewing! I wuv you all – shout outs to angeltears666 (don't worry – I'm glad you love her), xXxDragonxPhoenixXx (Gracias – I plan for them to argue a lot more), and Sam0728 (I will update as long as people show interest in le story – so hopefully soon!)**

* * *

"So…" Tony Stark clapped his hands together yet again. "I'm going to go and get Rock of Ages from Point Break now." And then he jumped. Ylva sprinted to the edge, peering out to see the compact version unfold around Stark and allowing him to shoot off towards the action. _What a badass. A semi-douche, but a badass, nonetheless, _she grinned as she watched him rocket towards the fecund forest over which the Quinjet was flying.

The young woman had read as much as S.H.I.E.L.D. had let her about who Loki was in order for her to know what she was going up against in Germany. The parts of the file that weren't restricted access told her that Loki wasn't the first to come to earth – his older brother being the big man on campus before him after what had been titled a 'domestic dispute'; she knew the Selvig had encountered the blonde bag of muscle and deified testosterone when he was still working in Puente Antiguo, a speck on the New Mexican map. "So _that_ was Thor Odinson?" Ylva called towards Natasha who nodded in affirmation before calling out towards Rogers after noting the 80-something-year-old suiting up into a parachute.

"I'd sit this one out, Captain," Natasha called – Natasha had always been like this: a dispassionate and logical being who had become a fixture in both S.H.I.E.L.D. and Ylva's life (although, like the existence of most of her personal connections, she would never admit it.)

Rogers fastened the parachute around himself as he said, "I don't see how I can." Natasha shook her head at him, not realizing that Ylva was inching towards the edge of the ramp with a parachute behind her back.

"These guys come from legend, Captain. They're basically gods."

Rogers had finished with his parachute but took the time to say, "There's only one God, ma'am, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't dress like _that_."

As Captain America hurled himself out of the Quinjet, Ylva wavered on the edge of the ramp. "That was a tad 'judge-y' considering the star-spangled spandex but I've got to admit… he has such catchy lines. Sometimes I think he practices them in front of a mirror at night…" As Ylva said this, Natasha noted the parachute that Ylva had slipped on.

"Valkyrie. Don't," Natasha looked dead serious. "You know that is not going to be pretty – there's enough teenage-boy hormones down there to drown a horde of wildebeest. And after Germany…" she trailed off as Ylva glared.

"I will deal with Mother Goose when the time comes, Romanoff," Ylva replied icily – normally, she wouldn't use this tone with someone she respected so much and never treated her with anything less than the same. But her words hurt Ylva, reminding her of her recent failings. If there could only be one thing to be said about the young woman, it was that disappointment from herself or anyone else did not suit her. "And if I don't go down there and deal with head-case while Rogers tries to put an end to 'aggressive negotiations' betwixt Sting and Blonde Brother Bear, he might just scamper off or… I don't know. Kill a baby deer. I wouldn't put it past him – he's doesn't seem to be a friend to Bambi by merit of his fucking charming disposition."

Natasha's usually determined gaze faltered, perhaps at the thought that she had genuinely offended Ylva, but quickly returned to its steely self. "Don't."

"Too late." Back stepping off of the edge, Ylva let herself freefall for a good 500 feet before unfurling the parachute, landing on an incline – the top of which seemed to have two tall figures who appeared to be arguing. It was just her luck landing here – the others might have been looking elsewhere as they were nowhere to be seen, leaving her without backup. She surveyed the arguing figures once more; one was obviously Loki (in all of his subtly tall, pale, intimidating glory) and the other was who she could rationally deduct was Thor. Hulking, deified, even-more-intimidating-than-his-psycho-brother Thor. She thought that perhaps she should intervene but because of her recent solo-failings and her lack of reinforcements – plus, logically, two demi-gods/gods (she wasn't too sure about the technicalities of it all) against Ylva? Even she wasn't that cocky. She decided that she would just observe for now.

Crouching close to the ground like a cat, Ylva stalked forward with deft footsteps until her lean frame was concealed behind a rocky jetty-like structure. She listened intently, first hearing a deep, resonating voice that could only come from the God of Thunder. "… thought you dead." The words were a swirl of outrage and sadness. Perhaps even relief. But Ylva couldn't be sure; understanding complex emotions in herself was hard enough.

A velvet voice answered, the bitingly sarcastic words slithering through the air and reaching her ears with ease. "Did you mourn?"

"We all did," the deeper voice responded. "Our father –"

"Your father. He did tell you my true parentage did he not?" Loki spat back at his 'brother'. _What is he talking about? _Ylva's brow furrowed in rare confusion. _So he's _not _his brother?_

"We were raised together, we played together, we fought together," Thor sounded unbelievably hurt or maybe just betrayed. "Do you remember none of that?"

Loki's cool demeanor disappeared when he responded. "I remember a shadow, living in the shade of your greatness… I remember you tossing me into an abyss. I who was and should be king!" Even Ylva could note the genuine pain beneath the anger in his voice.

"So you take the world I love as recompense for your imagined slights?" Thor questioned plainly. _So he loves this place... Welcome to the club, Debbie Harry, _Ylva thought as she listened even more intently. "No. The Earth is under my protection, Loki."

Loki seemed to find this amusing, laughing aloud before responding. "And you're doing a _marvelous_ job with that. The humans slaughter each other in droves while you idly fret. I mean to rule them, and why should I not?"

_I'd give you three good reasons: you're a psycho, you have some major personality flaws, and no one that the human population could respect wears that much leather in daylight. _Ylva arched an eyebrow.

"You think yourself above them?" Thor seemed to be rightfully interrogating Loki, and as much as Ylva wanted to listen to this, they needed to get Loki back to the Helicarrier. But her lack of backup was still a problem.

"Well yes," Loki answered. _What a bitch._

Then Thor responded with an answer that dispelled any trace of doubt that Ylva might have had about the wisdom that he might have lacked: "Then you miss the truth of ruling, brother. Throne would suit you ill." Ylva smiled to herself; she could always appreciate a good use of authority.

But her smile dimmed with Loki's hissing reply. "I've seen worlds you've never known about. I have grown, _Odinson_, in my exile," he spat venomously. _Wait… Exile? _"I have seen the true power of the Tesseract, and when I wield it –"

_Wield it?_

"Who showed you this power? Who controls the would-be-king?" Thor barked.

"I am a king!"

"Not here!" Thor bellowed. "You give up the Tesseract; you give up this poisonous dream! You come home!"

_Listen to him… Go. Leave. _

"I don't have it," Loki said simply. As simple as the words were, they twisted her heart with despair – the Tesseract needed to be out of dangerous hands and _this _situation was far from ideal. "You need the Cube to bring me home but I've sent it off I know not where." _Loki, you twat._

"You listen well brother –" Thor snarled, but before he could say anything else a flash of jets flew past her and seemed to end Thor's train of thought. _Stark_. She peaked out from the rock to see Loki standing with a mock-expectancy etched on his pale face.

"I'm listening…" He stood still.

Ylva briefly contemplated the situation at hand – Loki didn't seem to be running even though he now had ample opportunity to do so. This would be a good opportunity to 'chat' with him, perhaps even get some insight into his motives which seemed thus far to be very muddled.

As she approached him, she quietly hoped he wouldn't try to strangle her again.

. . .

Loki audibly scoffed when he noticed that _girl_ approaching him – then again, there were aspects about her that were very amusing when she wasn't trying to castrate him; he could see the potential for her to be useful as an ally. Although he didn't want to admit it, he saw a dim flicker of a familiar sentiment in her: displacement. Of course, he thought that there was a time when he was displaced but it was only when he was in Asgard under the thumb of the deceiving Allfather and in the shadow of Thor; in his mind, he was no longer _displaced_. He was right where he wanted to be – on the path to taking control of every living creature on this planet. Including the girl who now stood only feet away from him.

A snarky yet crystalline voice rang out behind him. "It's okay; mommy and daddy are only fighting because they love you so much."

"And in doing so, they leave only you," He turned and walked towards her. "In between me and my inevitable escape." As he towered over her, he became keenly aware of the itching fact that although he was nearly a foot taller than her, she seemed statuesque and commanding. It annoyed him. She annoyed him. Especially when one of her eyebrows arched as she crossed her arms and opened her mouth to berate him.

"Is it really that inevitable… _Loki?_" Her tone was mocking him – _The insolence_. Loki's still-bound hands shot out to grab her by the neck but the girl side-stepped with ease, grabbed one of his wrists and twisted it. "You try to grab my neck pretty much every time you see me," She pulled him closer to her. He could feel her breath ghost over his skin as she spoke; he noted that she smelled like peppermint, sharp and cool, with undertones of lavender, subtle and soft. It was a contrast more interesting than he'd like to admit. "Did you _honestly _think I would fall for that again?" Letting go of his wrist, the young woman sauntered towards the edge to watch the show. "Besides, you won't kill me. Not yet anyway… Actually, I don't know if I _can't _be killed." She seemed to say the last part at a barely audible tone – as if she was talking to herself.

Loki walked to stand beside her. "Why won't I kill you, Agent Ylva?"

"Because it isn't part of your 'evil plan' – and I'm not in your way right now because you _wanted_ to get caught," She looked up at him blankly and he couldn't help but notice that her eyes seemed very familiar to him – like he had seen them somewhere before; they were a deep shade of maroon, and were warm, secretive and accusing. The latter aspects of her eyes reminded him of his own pair of emerald ones. "Didn't you?"

He forgot what she had said for a moment but covered the lapse in a scoff. "That is terribly stupid of you to say – perhaps I'm not running because I –" He would have finished his sentence with some clever lie to cover his tracks but he was interrupted by a massive shockwave that basically decimated the forest below.

"Looks like they've reached an impasse." The young woman shrugged and jumped off of the edge onto another level of the rocky face. Calling up to him with a decidedly expectant face, the girl made a sweeping motion with her small white hands. "Come on, Farrah," He glared at her. "Oh, I'm _so sorry_. Please will you accompany, my all-mighty king of kingliness, Oh, divine God of Mischief?"

"I'm going to kill you."

The girl just continued to bound down the rock face indifferently as she called back to him, "But then you wouldn't get to see my lovely ass half as much. And that would be such a shame."

. . .

By the time Ylva got down to the odd-looking trio consisting of a demi-god, a super soldier, and a… guy with a suit, she was thoroughly convinced that Loki was taking his sweet time to catch up with her _solely _to annoy her. "We're not all immortal, Fido. You're going to have to move a little faster than that," She yelled to him before looking at a very beat-up Stark and gesturing to the trailing Loki. "Anyone else find this a bit odd? No? Okay. Have you two settled your differences?"

"Our fight was broken up by an octogenarian and Point Break over here has agreed to help us 'save the earth', so I'm gonna go with 'yes, we have'. Oh, yeah and this is Thor. Thor-Tinkerbelle, Tinkerbelle-Thor." Stark mock saluted Thor who proceeded to grab one of Ylva's hands with both of his bear ones (yes, his hands were the size of bear paws) and to kiss her knuckles chivalrously.

"It is good to meet you, Lady Tinkerbelle." The God of Thunder said in a booming voice as he unhanded the now-terribly bewildered Ylva. She wasn't used to physical contact and she especially wasn't used to the whole 'knight-in-shining-armor' shtick.

She looked very alarmed for a moment before composing herself enough to attempt to smile at Thor in a way that would be perceived as 'welcoming'. "You'll have to ignore Stark – the 90's weren't kind to him. My name is Valkyrie. Or Ylva. Either or at this point." She shifted on the balls of her feet and sighed. "We should probably collect Loki now and get back to the Quinjet… Natasha is most likely going to want to kick my ass."

* * *

**This chapter was really, really, really hard for me. I wanted to get some Loki POV in there with a mix of animosity and intrigue – and subtle hinting as to her heritage, mwhahahaha! I also threw in an **_**Iron Man **_**reference in there; imaginary cookie to whoever finds it first.**

**Tell me how you feel about my portrayal of Loki and if you like their chemistry (it's going to get more intense a bit later – part two of the story is going to have some major feels)**

**Review. I beg you. Tell me if this is complete shite or not.**


	8. Reindeer Games

**Thanks to all of the reviewers (especially the ones from angeltears666, Limavaa, Loki's Liz and xXxDragonxPhoenixXx on the last chapter) - I hope you enjoy and review at the end, even if you review as a guest. I need some encouragement because sometimes I feel like this is becoming monotonous!**

* * *

The sun was blaring down onto the deck of the helicarrier as Natasha started to land the aircraft that carried the group. Ylva signaled for her female comrade to open the ramp before they landed completely, opting instead to jump out when they were still a good thirty feet above the ground. She landed soundly on her feet, her strong (if thin) frame easily absorbing the shock from hitting the black – Ylva was happy to get out of the stifling atmosphere of the Quinjet's interior, if only to meet the militant one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s ocean/air base.

Jogging towards Coulson, Ylva gestured towards the heavily armed escort team that had been awaiting Loki's arrival. "Coulson," She folded her hands together behind her back and stood at attention. "Did the Director get our transmission about Thor and Loki?"

Coulson seemed to peer over her shoulder – probably to get a glimpse of Captain America – before eyeing her with some glimmer of what seemed to be sympathy. "Yes, Valkyrie. And we also got the scepter you sent to us on site in Germany – Dr. Banner is looking over it now…. Fury has told me that you are to report to him immediately in the main control room. Meaning now."

_This is going to be good. Mother Goose probably just wants to tighten his leash on me after the incident in Germany, _Ylva thought unhappily. After grinding her teeth covertly, the small woman nodded at Coulson. "I'll be on my way then. Try not to drool too much on the Captain, Phil." She thumped him on the back in a rare display of boyish affection before making her way towards the main control room where Fury would no doubt be waiting to berate her about her incompetence. She recalled being punished for acting out against S.H.I.E.L.D. as a child and shuttered – the coming chastising rant reminded her of a painfully unfortunate truth: she belonged to S.H.I.E.L.D. and there was no way around it.

She finally rounded the last corner and pushed through the doors to the room and scanned it for Fury. He was standing with Hill. "You wanted to slate to me, Sir?" Ylva stood tensely as he turned and walked towards her.

"No," Fury stood directly in front of her, towering over her like Loki had – it was an obvious power play. "I wanted to get your professional opinion about Loki. You seem to be the one that he's interacted with the most thus far, as little as that has been. But you're good at reading people so that shouldn't be too much trouble."

Ylva was now very, very suspicious about Fury's actions – reproving her would have been the natural Nick Fury reaction to her not stopping Loki from crashing the gala. _This _was not normal; Fury didn't get her readings on hostiles – he just sent her to deal with them like the pawn she was. After a moment of contemplation she realized what he was doing: he was trying to see if she sympathized with him, if she had a soft spot for him because he was also not human. He was indirectly questioning her allegiance. That made her furious. Biting the inside of her cheek enough to taste a minute amount of blood, she straightened her back and made herself stony and cold before replying, "I have no opinion, _sir_. S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't keep me like an ignominious and hazardous lab rat because it values or wants my opinions. But don't worry. I won't _defect_. Because as much as I hate the leash you and this organization has put on me because you view me as a threat to humanity, I _love _this planet; it is and forever will be my home even if I didn't come from here. So stop questioning my loyalty to you, Fury – it is _insulting_." Blood was pounding so hard in her ears from the anger she felt that she almost didn't hear the polite Coulson-esque cough that came from behind her. Ylva turned with an inhuman speed to see Natasha, Stark, Rogers, Coulson, and Thor standing awkwardly, staring at her and Fury. She remained stony faced as she said. "I'm going to assume that Dr. Banner is in his lab and now has Loki's scepter under his discretion. I will be going to said lab. Would you like to go there to discuss his findings, _sir_?"

"Yes."

"Fine."

There was a painful silence on the way to Dr. Banner's (or the Hulk's) lab; Fury led the way with what Ylva could now accurately suppose could be called 'The Avengers' trailing behind him. When they all reached the lab, Bruce Banner looked up at them from behind a translucent two-way screen. "More people… Yay."

Ylva tried to break the awkwardness by gliding forward with a small and outstretched hand. "Dr. Banner. It's nice to finally make your acquaintance."

Banner took her hand and shook it warily but warmly. "I don't know who you are but yeah… Nice to meet you, er…?"

"Valkyrie. Her name is Valkyrie." Fury rumbled from behind her. Ylva lapsed momentarily and let anger flash across her face before composing herself enough to correct him.

"But I prefer the name my father gave me. Ylva."

Banner smiled. "Ylva. Good name… Yikes." Ylva (and everyone else in the room) turned to see Loki being marched down the hallway towards the containment area. He gave them all an odd smile before his eyes settled on Ylva, giving her a strange sort of glare.

There was a momentary silence before Stark broke it. "Woah. Did you all just see that?"

"A poster child for BDSM?" Ylva folded her arms and leaned against the table.

"No… Well, yes, but I was referring to Reindeer Games giving Tinkerbell over here the sex eyes." Stark seemed to be silently enjoying the 'I will kill you in your sleep' glare that Ylva now was dishing out to him. Fury seemed to glare at Stark as well before he spoke to the entire group.

"I'm going to go and give Loki a visit – you all feel free to watch from the main control room," Fury turned to Ylva. "Valkyrie. With me."

Ylva heard Stark murmur to Rogers. "Somebody is in trouble with the teacher." She was sorely tempted to throw a shoe at him.

The walk to the containment area was silent and gave Ylva time to think about what she had said to Fury; the words had been from a place of anger, yes, but they were also from a place of truth – she meant them with her whole non-human heart. _But that doesn't mean I should have said them – especially when it means angering the person who is in complete control of my life_. For the first time since she was 10-years-old, Ylva felt truly scared of Nick Fury; she didn't know if she could die in the first place after the scientists who ran the initial tests on her in the first place had told her that once she reached her physical peak there wouldn't be any degeneration – but that didn't mean that Fury couldn't kill her. She knew that S.H.I.E.L.D. had tried to find her weaknesses for years… and for all she knew they had. It would be the smart thing for her to grovel, to beg Fury to forgive her, to say that she hadn't meant any of it, to do anything to ensure her survival. But while her protective instinct was strong, her pride was ever stronger.

Fury turned to her before they entered the room. "Don't let him get to you, Valkyrie. I want you to stay out here until I come back," He handed her a pad with the security taping of the containment area queued up. "Stay out here until I come and get you." Before she could answer the Director barged in (the badass that he is) and started to speak to Loki, who was pacing in the sealed tank like a lion in a zoo – captive but deadly. Ylva watched on the pad as Fury started to tell the incarcerated God about his cage. She zoned out for a moment, confused about the Director's motives behind keeping her back.

It was Loki's voice that drew her back in to focus. "An impressive cage… Not built I think for me."

Ylva kept her eye trained on Loki as Fury replied, "Built for something a lot stronger than you." _Dammit, Fury, don't say that… don't hint._

"Oh, I've heard…" Loki said saccharinely. "A mindless beast that makes play he's still a man. How _desperate _are you? You call on such lost creatures to defend you…" Ylva's grip tightened around the pad in anger.

"How desperate am I?" Fury asked coldly and started to close in on him. "You threaten my world with war, you steal a force you can't hope to control, you talk about peace and you kill because it's fun. You have made me _very _desperate. You might not be glad that you did."

"Oh…" The God tauntingly replied. "It _burns you_ to have come _so_ close. To have the Tesseract – to have power… Unlimited power and for what?" Loki turned towards a security cam – a chill ran up Ylva's spine as Loki's green eyes mocked her through a screen. "A warm light for all mankind to share… And then to be reminded what real powe –" Ylva accidently crushed the pad in her hands out of anger, not able to stand the arrogance of his words. It didn't seem as though she missed much as Fury came through the door moments after she had decimated the expensive piece of technology.

"You're up."

* * *

**This chapter took me basically all day to write – I hope it's okay.**

**Review more, people! I'm not a touchy person – I won't get upset if you give me notes. Much love and have a wonderful day/night/evening.**


	9. Quid Pro Quo, Clarice

**Hey, Wilburs. I'm sorry to say that my updates won't be every day anymore - I must needs get work on some major shtuff. BUT this just means that my updates will be longer so... YAY! Thanks for the reviews last chapter from Lilmissmessy (COOKIE NOM NOM NOM), Karin Heinrich, Sam0728, xXxDragonxPhoenixXx, CherryBlossomTrinity, and angeltears666 - Much love to all of you.**

**REVIEW OR ELSE... Or else nothing. I will update all the same 'cause I'm a bamf like that.**

* * *

"I don't understand, sir." Ylva tried to cross her arms but the decimated pad prevented her. "What would you have me to do? Babysit him?"

"I'm going to send in Agent Romanoff to try and figure out what his objectives are. Until then, I want you to talk to him." Fury started to walk away from her.

Ylva clutched the broken pad in her hand. The familiar ache of anger rocked through her as she called to his back once again. "Is this a test, sir?"

"No," He stopped in his tracks. "This is your opportunity to prove your allegiance." Fury walked on.

_What the hell does that even mean?_ Ylva thought as she slowly entered the containment area. Ignoring Loki, she started to pace in front of the clear barrier between them, attempting to sort out her thoughts which were being clouded by residual anger. _He wants me to get information out of Loki – he wants me to do something for S.H.I.E.L.D. that would be difficult for me; he wants me to sacrifice my pride and… try to remain cool under my own pressure or something._ She now understood that he wanted her to prove her allegiance by doing something difficult for her. _Shit. I'll have to be civil. _Ylva nearly let out a strangled laugh at the thought – Fury was asking a lot of her; Ylva was completely and easily able to keep her temper under control when she was being threatened by enemy fire – but if she was having a casual conversation, that was a whole different matter. Social interaction wasn't something she was used to.

_But if this is what I have to do… I'll have to do it. _Ylva took a deep breath in before looking over at the expectant Loki. She really had no idea how one would start a causal conversation so she simply tossed the broken pad around in her hands and smirked. "You're quiet the conversationalist aren't you… Insulting the one person who is not only smarter than you but could also easily 'smash' you."

"I'll believe that when I see it." Loki shot a cold smile at her. Ylva simply arched her eyebrow at him.

"You do realize that statement will inevitably come back to bite you in the ass, right?"

Stalking forward until he was just in front of the barrier, his smile remained plastered on his face as he said, "I highly doubt that, Agent Ylva," She would have retorted with some pithy statement but he continued by changing the subject. "So why have your masters sent you here to me? To appeal to my inner man with a pretty face?"

"I'm pretty sure they would have sent Captain if they wanted to do that – he seems more your type."

A flash of anger before Loki's confident smile reappeared as he tsked at her, "Now, now, Ylva… That is no way to get me to open up to you."

Ylva started to pace directly in front of the glass, slightly put off guard by his frankness – even though she knew she shouldn't have been; it made her very angry but she simply tightened her grip on the pad that she still had and decided that she had to play his little game if she wanted to get anywhere with him. "Alright, Farrah," She stopped in front of him. "What would you suggest?"

"Oh, I'm sure we can think of something, _Ylva_," Loki's voice deepened in a pretty obvious attempt to scare her. She simply stood there, one eyebrow cocked until he continued. "I shall ask you a question and you shall answer; then you may ask me a question and I shall answer."

Ylva didn't like the idea and was very frank in communicating that sentiment. "I'm sorry, I didn't know that we were in _Silence of the Lambs_."

"I do not understand that reference."

"Good," Ylva bristled. "You'd probably be far too pleased with who I'm comparing you to."

Loki simpered at her. "Well, like it or not, that is my offer – 'take it or leave it' as the saying goes."

Clinching her teeth in an effort to restrain herself from her own anger, Ylva nodded. "Fine. But I'm asking you the first question… Why did you let yourself be captured?" Loki tsked at her.

"You'll find that out soon enough. Now I believe it is my turn to ask you a question."

Ylva felt the pad crack a little more under her grip as she said (ever so calmly), "That wasn't really an answer. Give me something real."

Loki seemed to completely ignore her as he asked her innocently (as he could), "Where were you born?"

"What?"

"Where…" Loki got even closer to the barrier. "Were you born?"

Suddenly taken aback, Ylva glared at him, angry that he had shaken in her in the first place. "Norway. I think."

"You 'think'?" He unexpectedly looked intrigued – taking Ylva aback yet again.

"Yes. I think," She glared at him through the clear barrier and hissed at him, "My mother told me I was born in Norway – and my mother wasn't the most honest of beings… " _Damn. I shouldn't have told him that – Now I have to distract him from me… _"Where were you born?"

His pale, sharp face sneered at her. "Hasn't Thor told you all about it yet? From the way that the man of iron and the soldier leapt to defend your honor I assumed that you were the little confidant to all of the heroes that your precious Cyclops likes to think will be able to stop me."

And then for the second time that day, she snapped. "Man, I just met Thor. You were there. Your gratuitous use of grease for that hair of yours must produce a lot fumes so I understand that you're obviously brain damaged so you know what, Hannibal? I'm going to forgive you for not remembering that magical moment when your brother – and yes, he is your brother no matter whose vagina you crawled out of like a hellhound from the gates of the netherworld – said 'pleased ta meet cha, Tinkerbell!' And you know what else I'm going to forgive you for because I'm such a damn saint of an inhuman freak?" She stalked forward until she would be able to bite him if it weren't for the barrier. She kept her clear voice steady and cold. "I'm going to forgive you for condescending to me because I know deep down inside, past that pasty-ass shell that you wear, you are just as fucked-up and confused as everyone else is. _Loki_."

As soon as she uttered the last stinging syllable, the God that she had just chastised slammed his fist against the barrier, enraged. His eyes were attempting to 'cut dat bitch' as he started to seethe at her. "Now you listen to me you Midgardian wh—"

"No," She mocked him by banging her fist where he had. "You listen to _me _you Asgardian bitch. One, I am not 'Midgardian' – assuming that means human – so you can just stuff that comment back up your pretentious ass. Two, _this_," She slammed her fist against the barrier again. "Accomplishes nothing, don't do it; I have had to deal with people trying to intimidate me into submission enough for the past fifteen years. And the third thing is…" She leaned against the barrier. "I can't even remember. Damn. Your fumes must have got to me in the Quinjet." In all honesty, she was exhausted; the last 32 hours had seriously drained her – and it wasn't the 'being stabbed' thing, either. It was the sudden realization that the only father figure in her life thought that she had the potential to threaten humanity, that humanity was being threatened by a warped out Criss Angel impersonator, and that she had no future even if humanity was saved by a bunch of super beings who kind of hated each other. She slumped over before turning to look at him – not glare, just look; he didn't seem to be angered at her words or even amused. He just looked at her as well as if he was sizing her up, too.

"You're a very angry thing," Loki folded his hands behind his back.

"And you're not?" She snorted.

Loki furrowed his brows before breaking back into a broad smile that made her loathe him even more. "Well, of course… Anger is such a base feeling – too mortal for a God such as myself to feel. No. My feelings are decidedly more…" His face softened without warning as he looked her in the eyes. "Complicated."

Somewhat startled at his change in tone, Ylva crossed her arms against her chest and arched an eyebrow. "For someone who allowed themselves to be locked up in an inglorious cage, you have a very high opinion of your own mentality."

"And you don't?"

"I'm not allowing myself to be locked up in a cage." She told a half truth.

Loki put his hand out against the barrier and leaned in. "You aren't?" He had seen through her lie; and that made her furious but she was damned if she was going to let him get underneath her skin.

Quietly, she stared at him for a long time, just to make him feel uncomfortable. "I don't _allow_ myself to be locked up. Don't pretend you 'know my heart' or some shit. We're not alike – you want to subjugate. I've _been _subjugated for the majority of my life. _You_ want to prove something and _I'm tired_ of trying to prove anything. You try to get me to divulge my weaknesses – you try to dishearten me with making me reflect on my own burdens but what you don't understand is that I've made peace with them. Stop trying to figure me out when you haven't even figured yourself out. Fuck off." She dropped the broken pad in front of the barrier as she walked out silently, not even acknowledging Natasha as she walked past her in the doorway.

As she walked through the maze of mostly deserted hallways her chest started to tighten. Unnamed emotions started to bubble to the surface until she couldn't take it anymore and didn't know whether for the first time in fourteen years she would weep or for the first time in two minutes she would snap. It turned out to be the latter as she felt her fist breaking through the wall of the empty hallway. Then, she silently and calmly turned and walked away, eyes on the ground.

Until she almost ran into someone – she heard and felt them walking towards her but she expected they would divert their path when they saw her coming but when they were about six inches away from her, she got the message that they were definitely not paying attention. She easily dodged them but when she looked up to see a very out of it and frustrated Rogers, she caught him by the scruff of his uniform and brought him back to look at her.

"Where's the fire, Eagle Scout?" She asked curiously.

Unexpectedly, he started to _glare _at her, hissing, "Don't call me that, Valkyrie – No one is perfect, dammit!" She was surprised at his gall – it wasn't the Rogers way to snap at a 'delicate female' such as herself. But he quickly tried to make amends, saying in an ashamed but frustrated tone, "I'm sorry for that. It's just Stark – He's being –"

"Stark," She cut him off with a gentle tone – which surprised her considering gentle wasn't really her shtick. "Stark is being Stark. Just like you can't expect me to hug someone, you can't expect Stark to respect boundaries… You just have to deal with it. Make your peace with it… I do and I'm just," She struggled to find a word that he'd understand. "Peachy. I'm just peachy."

"I'm sorry." He suddenly blurted out. She just shook her head.

"You don't have to apologize, you weren't that harsh, R –"

"No," His eyes looked concerned and full of something that might have been friendship – something generally very foreign to her. "I'm sorry that you have to make peace with it. It seems like you have to make peace with a lot of things."

"So you all saw that," She stared at him like she had stared at Loki. "Perfect. Just… Perfect."

* * *

**Hope you all enjoyed the "insult-everyone-because-that's-just-such-a-good-idea-Ylva" hour. And the Silence of the Lambs refs.**

**Quid Pro Quo, Clarice.  
**

**REVIEW. asdfghjkeyrwauihef.  
**


	10. The Lesser of Two Evils

**OKAY. So. On chapter seven I got this review from 'Elle' and I don't know who this person is but I'm going to go out on a limb and say from her awesome grammar and well thought out review that she is awesome sauce. I can't even.**

**1valleygirl4 and badwolfette21, thank you for your review, lovelies! Guest, Imma do it man. I promise.**

**xXxDragonxPhoenixXx: Yeah. The whole 'I've made peace with this" is complete crap – her issues need some serious sorting that she can't do alone… she needs someone who can **_**relate **_**(subtle hinting like a boss.)**

**Review.**

"It was really what I needed – for everyone to see me lashing out at two very dangerous men two times in one day," she slumped against the hallway wall and rubbed her eyes; she was starting to really feel the exhaustion. "I am just…" She raised her first ironically. "Killing it." _Making peace. _Ylva told herself that every single day – and she really, really believed it. "Yeah, Rogers. I've definitely made my peace with being a mindless lab rat to a bunch of people who won't let me have a driver's license." Ylva mentally punched herself. "I didn't say that."

Rogers sighed. "Valkyrie. I don't judge – I really can't anyway," he folded his arms. "I think that perhaps we should – do you want to talk about it?"

Ylva pushed off of the wall and punched Rogers lightly on his arm. "I'm not much of a talker when it comes to me – or at least I shouldn't be… Rogers, you can't listen to me bitching and moaning anymore – none of you should; I think I just get frustrated and the only way I can communicate that is by punching things or verbally flogging people."

Rogers chuckled warily. "I guess we shouldn't frustrate you, then."

"I think that we all just need to get this over with – Natasha is working on Loki now and she'll be able to get some good information out of him," Ylva bit her lip. "Did I miss anything while I was bonding with Jareth?" Rogers looked confused so Ylva clarified. "Reference to an 80's movie. Sorry."

"No worries… It seems like Stark is bonding with Dr. Banner."

Ylva laughed quietly and started to walk down the hallway in large strides. "A bromance for the ages. I'm going to go change into my uniform," she looked back to Rogers who was catching up to her. "Are you alright to deal with Stark?" Rogers nodded abruptly and continued on as she ducked into the small room that she had been assigned.

After she had quickly put on and zipped up the jumpsuit (although the term 'cat suit' would have been more correct), Ylva made her way to the lab where she found Thor, Banner, Stark, and Rogers leaning back from a security screen; Rogers looked very flushed.

"Did you all break Captain or something?" Ylva's eyebrow arched as she commenced to steal several blueberries on the desk.

Stark looked indifferent as he said, "Rock of Ages just called Catwoman a 'mewling quim' is all – that and livin' la vida Loki plans to piss off the good doctor enough to send him into a green rage – hey those are my blueberries, Val Kilmer." Ylva felt a flush of anger at Loki's insult but then realized that it wouldn't have fazed Natasha. She kept a straight face.

"I guess we'll have to start calling the Quinjet the _Quim_jet… Get it?" Ylva knew it was a bad joke but she regretted nothing. "So. Did he say anything else besides 'mewling quim' or has he lost his penchant for evil genius monologues?"

Banner pushed his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose as he said, "I can replay the tape if you and Cap would like to see it."

"Make it so, Number One." After receiving two confused stares and two disappointed-in-your-sense-of-humor ones, Ylva leaned over Banner's shoulder to watch the playback.

A small, pixel version of the God of Mischief appeared on the screen and started to stalk forward to the redhead. "_Can you? Can you wipe out that much red? Drakov's daughter, Tugenov, the hospital fire? Yes, Barton told me everything. Your ledger is dripping, it's gushing red, and you think saving a man no more virtuous than yourself will change anything? This is the basest sentimentality. This is a child at prayer... PATHETIC! You lie and kill in the service of liars and killers. You pretend to be separate, to have your own code, something that makes up for the horrors. But they are a part of you, and they will never go away!_" Ylva's throat started to constrict and her heart started to sink. "_... No, I won't touch Barton. Not until I make him kill you! Slowly, intimately, in every way he knows you fear! And when he wakes, he'll have just enough time to see the work he's done, and when he screams, I'll break his skull! This is my bargain, you mewling quim!_"

Ylva straightened up. "Excuse me, gentlemen. I have a greasy-haired bitch to cut." She started to walk towards the door but as she started to pass Thor, she felt his large hands grab her rib cage and lift her off of the ground like a doll. There was a long awkward silence as Ylva glared at Thor. "Are you going to put me down or am I going to have to taze you?" Thor blanched slightly and Ylva nodded. "Yeah. I read the New Mexico files."

But Thor regained his ground and kept her up in the air. "No. You are not to harm my brother." Banner seemed to cough awkwardly as he tried to settle to two.

"You know what? I don't think we should even be focusing on Loki. That guy's brain is a bag full of cats. You can smell crazy on him." Banner said warily. 

Thor frowned and kept his firm grip on Ylva but spoke to Banner with an even firmer tone. "Have a care how you speak! Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard and he is my brother!"

"He killed eighty people in two days." Natasha appeared in the doorway with all of her catsuited glory.

"He's adopted." Thor said plainly.

Ylva pursed her lips into a dry smile as she waved to Natasha. "And he wears a lot of leather – So. Brother Bear. I promise to not kick his ass (right now) and then you can put me down before I make you and your adopted brother an unhappy pair when I kick you _in_ the pears," she arched an eyebrow and folded her arms as he slowly lowered her down. "So what's Loki's play?"

"He has an army called the Chitauri – "Thor started to tell her when Rogers interrupted him.

"An army from outer space."

Ylva sarcastically winced. "Hate those." Thor missed her irony as he nodded in agreement. Banner continued the explanation.

"And obviously he is using Selvig and the Tesseract to create a portal."

"Obviously." Ylva rubbed her eyes in frustration. Suddenly, she spotted something very odd about the large two way screen; she started to walk over. "What the hell is this going on, Stark?"

"Oh, I'm just unlocking all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s dirty secrets with my own sophisticated software. Dammit. You ate the good blueberries."

"How can you not trust Fury?" Rogers chimed in.

Stark replied plainly. "He's a spy. He' _the _spy. His secrets have secrets." He was mockingly discrete as he dramatically gestured at Ylva.

"Subtle."

Ylva suddenly felt Thor's massive presence behind her. "I do not understand – is Valkyrie a secret of some sort?"

"Civilians aren't supposed to know about me or my, er, existence so in a way, yes," Ylva said apprehensively. Thor still looked confused.

"Why?"

Stark didn't even look up from his computer as he said, "Because she's inhuman. And a little bit inhumane, too – but who's looking?"

"I do not understand this." Thor shifted on his feet.

Ylva rubbed her eyes. "I'm just not human – DNA and shit; it's pretty simple… But we're not talking about me," she looked at Stark. "When are you going to get all of the files?"

Stark looked mildly surprised. "Hm. I thought you would be against this, it having to do with Papa Bear and all." Ylva scoffed.

"My father – or at least who I think is my father – is dead. So 'Papa Bear' is out of the picture… And Fury is up to something with the Tesseract. That I'm sure of."

"Valkyrie." Natasha looked grave.

Ylva shook her head. "There's something wrong with this picture and you can't pretend that you don't see it, too," she walked over to the screen and looked at the partially decoded files. "We can't control it."

"I agree with the girl… The Tesseract belongs on Asgard." Thor's voice boomed across the room.

Ylva cocked her head and arched an eyebrow as she said, "'Girl'? Okay, we'll ignore that because frankly that is a better name than 'Valkyrie'. I don't know if I agree with the whole Asgard thing but I know that I don't want Fury to be endangering anyone outside of S.H.I.E.L.D…"

A small _beep _resounded through the lab and Banner rushed to his computer. "Speaking of… We got it." Ylva rubbed her eyes again after a brief glance at the screen.

"Fuck."

**REVIEW. Or I will have to… I have no idea. I just – REVIEW. Tell me what you think even if you think that this story is boring and Ylva is a bitch. BUT FOR THE RECORD, if Ylva is a bitch, she's a damn awesome bitch.**

**REEVVIIEEWWW. Much Love.**


	11. Delayed Cicatrisation

**I apologize for this, my loves, but today will bring with it a long Author's Note. I thought that I owe an explanation to you fine folks – I have planned this story to be in two parts: the first part will be set during the Avengers and the second part is post-Avengers (but don't worry – the gang will go on another Marvel-inspired adventure so it won't be boring.) Also, I'm going to make a promise to you all to release AT LEAST (meaning maybe more) one chapter per week – this shit does take planning, guys. Plus, Ylva can be really difficult to write for. She's one complicated-ass bitch.**

**Call out time! I'm glad you all liked my **_**Labyrinth **_**reference. It's one of my favorite movies. God, I love making references – it's just so damn fun. Anyways, back to business. Lucifea Nightshade (I know, right?), xXxDragonxPhoenixXx (I knew I wasn't the only one who saw it!), Loki's Liz (It's gon' be good – they're both super aggressive and it's going to be fun writing it), and angeltears666 (I love writing for lovable bitches. Ylva is modeled after one of my old characters that I wrote for on Tumblr) you are all awesome.**

**Lania, your review definitely gave me a confidence boost considering I constantly freak out about grammar. Much love to you, m'dear! ELLE. OH DEAR GOD. You used the word 'salutations'. Marry me. I really want this story not just to be about Ylva's relationship with Loki, but also with the rest of the Avengers so I try to put a lot of depth in them, as well and it just makes me so happy that you recognize and enjoy it. Thank you so much!**

**REVIEW, my loves. Please. **

There was an eerie silence that struck the lab as Banner and Stark sifted through the data. Ylva paced and rubbed her eyes; she had seen this coming. Ylva knew that humans were a complicated – each person had their own motivations and objectives and when tested or frightened, humans were able to do unspeakable things. S.H.I.E.L.D. was no exception to this rule and no matter how hard they might have tried to do the right thing; they were still under the influence of many different biases. What they thought to be the right thing could be warped by fear – _and all of _this _was definitely inspired by fear_, Ylva thought bitterly. "Banner," the young woman called out to the scientist who was perched at the screen. "Could you pull up my file?"

Stark pursed his lips at his own screen, subtlety signaling his concern over the situation before he caught Ylva's eye. "How do you even know you'll be in here?"

"They keep track of threats and those with the potential to be threats with highly detailed files. That and all S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel have files at hand – some are just buried in encryption and others are more readily at hand. Considering what they put me through as a child and my current treatment, I expect that they have classified me as a threat and have therefore put my undoubtedly thick file somewhere deep," Ylva said with a voice that would be described at monotone or perhaps indifferent by most listeners. Only Natasha would be able to hear the slight crack in her voice as she spoke of her past ordeals with S.H.I.E.L.D. and how she was viewed there. Natasha had never been unkind to Ylva and was the closest thing that either of them had to a female confidant – still, both of their unwillingness to speak of what had happened to them (or in Natasha's case what she had done) had created an impenetrable barrier between them. No one but Hawkeye – who Ylva knew was most likely wholly aware of the Widow's past exploits – could understand Natasha. But when it came to Ylva, no one in S.H.I.E.L.D. except for Fury, Coulson, and a few select doctors, knew what she had been put through. What _they_ had put her through. "If you've really broken through all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s security, I should be somewhere in there… Please." Ylva surprised herself with the gentle pleading nature of her tone in this last part. Clearly, she surprised most people in the lab – including Banner, who looked somewhat alarmed at the lack of innocent snark or unassuming irony that had become a trademark for Ylva. So he simply nodded after a moment and returned to his screen. After a couple of silent minutes he pulled up a file onto the large double screen that was marked 'Valkyrie, Pála – Norwegian Incident'.

"Pála… Is that your last name, Valkyrie?" Banner pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. Ylva gave no outward hint of the pain of hearing her last name; it reminded her of a time that was a lie to live. Even if it was the happiest lie she ever had lived.

"Was," the young woman said simply. "_Was _my last name…" Ylva walked towards the large, translucent screen and tapped the file twice. It opened to reveal a myriad compilations of test results, doctor's logs, CAT scans (full body and otherwise), notes from supervisors, records of her diet, weight, physical development – Ylva felt physically ill. It was all so _personal_ but at the same time she felt like she was looking at some other person's file, a detailed account of someone life from someone else's perspective. It didn't feel like her. It felt like… _I can't even figure out how I feel anymore_. Ylva swallowed hard before tapping one of the earlier video logs from a doctor.

An older man in a lab coat and scrubs flickered on screen and spoke directly at the camera, "Patient 1-4-3-4-12, A.K.A. Valkyrie, exhibits genetic coding too complicated to analyze at this time. Skeletal structure boasts a composition that is roughly 3.257 times denser than a typical female human's but seems to be considerably lighter. Further inspection of erythrocytes yielded interesting results, namely the decreased time of erythropoiesis although other irregularities and complexities were found. The patient's count of neutrophil granulocytes is unfeasibly high, especially when considering the fact that she is under neither a bacterial nor a viral attack. Cicatrisation is expedient, most likely due to the rapid rate at which her blood coagulates, the increased complexity and efficiency of both the inflammatory phase and the proliferative phase, which in part is owed to the type II and type III collagen being (seemingly) replaced by type I collagen," the doctor rubbed his eyes, obviously exhausted. "Unfortunately, further testing is needed but it would not be unreasonable to assume that the patient is a higher evolved being to the point of not being able to be reasonably placed within our own taxonomic rank. But considering that the patient's results have no natural precedent… I'm not too sure what to classify her." The log ended there.

Silence reverberated in the lab once again. Stark was the first one to break it. "Well, shit, Valkyrie."

Rogers had his eyebrows knit together in an obvious sign of (justified) confusion. "My apologies to you Dr. Banner but I don't have a degree in biology… What the hell did all of that mean?" Banner raised his eyebrows and inhaled deeply, as if he was wondering where to begin but before he could muster up the words, Ylva drew out her knife and spoke up.

"It means that I wasn't joking or being histrionic when I said I wasn't human. And that I'm one tough bitch." With that she dragged her knife across her collarbone, cutting deeply. Rogers (the soldier and leader he was) and Thor tried to rush forward but Natasha stopped them both with a gentle but firm hand.

"Just look." She said simply. The group watched as the wound started to gush blood for a fraction of a moment before stopping abruptly, leaving a thick red line that quickly faded to pink then back to the milky ivory shade of Ylva's skin, leaving no trace of the wound. Ylva tucked the knife back into her hip holster and walked back towards the screen, searching it for more enigmatic information to process.

Banner flailed his hands for a moment, seemingly distressed at the unfamiliar feeling of confusion. "Wait, wait, wait, wait… How can S.H.I.E.L.D. take that information as fact if they didn't test it?" He realized the implications of his question with a jolt. "Did they… I mean – you know. Did they… test it?"

Ylva was pained again at the memories of the injections and the trials that S.H.I.E.L.D. put her through. "Yeah. They tested it. But hey – it's nice to know that even if I'm directly exposed to Ebola, I'm going to be fine." She attempted to sound ironic and light when she said this but she only ended up sounding like a pissed-off teenager. When Ylva felt a small hand (most likely belonging to Natasha) touch her shoulder, she flinched at the contact – she wasn't a touchy person but she didn't want to be ungrateful at the small gesture of comfort so she didn't shrug away. "I'm not angry at S.H.I.E.L.D…. I know it was a difficult position to be put in for them. But they tried to do what was best for the world."

"Even if that means making weapons using possibly one of the greatest sources of energy ever known?" Stark spoke simply as he hovered over his screen with a massive file sprawled before him.

Natasha suddenly got very angry at the implication. "Are you all really that naive? S.H.I.E.L.D monitors potential threats."

"Captain America is on potential threat watch list?" Banner spoke up from his own screen. Stark near-snorted and stood up to stand beside Ylva while he casually sized Rogers up.

"You're on that list? Are you above or below angry bees?"

"I swear to God, Stark, one more crack..." Rogers seethed.

Stark mockingly retreated behind the small woman. "Threatening! I feel threatened!" Ylva glared at Stark for a moment as Thor finally spoke up.

"This is the reason that the Tesseract does not belong on Midgard," he crossed his large arms across his armored chest. "You people are so petty… And tiny."

The room seemed to erupt in argument but before Ylva could join in the fray, something on the large screen (which still had her own file open) caught her attention. "That's odd…" she mumbled gently to herself before opening a more recent file marked 'The Puente Antiguo Incident' that was residing in her own. As far as she knew, she had nothing to do with that case – but Loki and Thor had; she quickly searched the document until she came upon the section reserved for connections that S.H.I.E.L.D. had made after the fact. But before she was able to read it in its entirety, Ylva heard Fury's voice.

"That is _enough_," he looked furiously around the room while still maintaining the collected calm he had achieved after years of experience. "There isn't time for this behavior – we have a potentially intergalactic crisis on our hands that needs our attention." Rogers stood his ground.

"With all due respect, sir, I'm not prepared to do a _damn _thing until we all receive the explanation that is owed to us."

Nodding at his statement, Ylva added, "Sir, if the Tesseract is being used to make weapons how can we continue to search for it? We'd be aiding and abetting the creation of something that could destroy humanity… not empower it."

Banner looked increasingly frustrated as he said, "Exactly. Why would you have us continue your endangerment of earth?"

The slow build in tension finally erupted when Fury turned and pointed at Thor and then to Ylva. "Because of them."

There was a beat of silent confusion until Stark whispered to Banner, "Ruh-Roh."

"What do you mean 'them'?" Ylva strode forward to Fury who looked down at her with something in his eye that Ylva might call regret if she didn't know the man so well.

"After the Norwegian incident, we had our suspicions… And after the New Mexico incident," he nodded slightly towards Thor. "Our suspicions were confirmed. We are not alone – and when we realized that you were both from the same race after some genetic comparison, we also realized that just because we didn't realize that we weren't by ourselves it didn't mean that the others didn't. How else would you two end up here?" He asked bitterly and rhetorically.

Both Thor's and Ylva's fists curled in anger but it was the former who spoke first. "Even if Valkyrie is of Asgard, I have told you before that we mean no harm to you – Loki acts alone."

Banner ran his fingers through his hair angrily. "You can't just _not tell _Valkyrie what she is just like you can't _not tell _all of us the whole situation, Fury!" Natasha was becoming increasingly unnerved at Banner's darkening mood. Everyone was. Even Fury.

"Agent Romanoff, would you escort Dr. Banner back to his – "

"Back where? You rented my room," Banner hissed.

Fury kept firm as he said, "The cell was built – " But again Banner didn't let him finish.

"In case you needed to kill me, but you can't! I know! I tried... I got low. I didn't see an end, so I put a bullet in my mouth... and the other guy spit it out! So I moved on. I focused on helping other people. I was good, until you dragged me back into this freak show and put everyone here at risk!" Banner said miserably, his voice tainted with a growing rage. He turned to Natasha. "You wanna know my secret, Agent Romanoff? You wanna know how I stay calm?" Ylva's hand flicked down to her gun when she saw Banner pick up Loki's scepter.

"Banner…" She pleaded quietly.

Stepping forward slowly, Rogers was firm as he commanded, "Dr. Banner... put down the scepter." Banner looked down in shock to see the weapon in his hand as they all heard a loud _beep _from all of the computers. Banner threw the staff down and looked down at his screen.

"Sorry, kids. You don't get to see my little party trick after all… They're here."

**REVIEW. Just do it (peer pressuring like a boss, hehe)**


	12. Who

**It's been a week! And one day. God, Cal. Anyone who reads the tumblr for my fanfiction account knows I was going to post this yesterday around 10 but…So I deleted that post. PLUS, I wanted to write more and I feel like I always post at the wrong time of day so no one new sees that this story exists. I thank all of my reviewers (1valleygirl4, KathyForest52, and Telekenetic in the usa, who I really have to apologize to for not being able to fulfill their request). **

**I'd like to personally address some of the reviewers (whoa, soundin' so severe but don't worry): badwolfette21, I hope this chapter clears some things up about her origin and if you're really curious about some of the details about her origin, feel free to ask me on my Tumblr (the link to which is on my profile). Mrs Holmes-watson, I'M SO EXCITED TOO. There are going to be some major feels later if you can forgive what Loki does in this chapter.**

* * *

There was no silence now as multiple explosions rocked the vessel that were almost undoubtedly cause by one of Hawkeye's specialized arrows. Ylva didn't need to think – she knew what she had to do. Turning to Fury for a moment for a familiar affirmation, the young woman (or demi-god when considering all technicalities) took his curt nod in her direction as a sign that she needed to take control of the situation before it took control of all of them. She took off in a lithe sprint towards the containment room to secure Loki – if Hawkeye or anyone else was going to save the greasy-haired damsel in distress they would have to go through her first.

She tried to process it all as she was running; it was what she usually did, after all. If she ever had anything that was weighing on her she would swim or box or run or something of such a physical nature; and things weighed on her basically all of the time. But this… this was something different – Ylva knew how she _should _react to finding out her heritage: she should have been ecstatic or possibly unburdened or confused. Any of those seemed to be the natural reaction to something so presumably life-altering. _And yet, I don't feel… Anything,_ Ylva thought as she raced through the halls. It was a numbness that she had only experienced after her father's death. In a split second she decided that the new information that she had been presented with minutes earlier didn't affect her at all – it was almost as if they hadn't even told her. _Maybe it just hasn't sunk in yet... No, that's not it. It couldn't be that. _

Deciding to take a short cut, she pulled up a floor panel to get down into the maintenance grids, the catacomb-like subsurface of the ship floored by metal grate and dimly lit to boot. It reminded her vaguely of the place where Han Solo was frozen in carbonite. After swinging herself down and landing lithely on her feet, Ylva picked her pace back up immediately, weaving her way in and out of circuit boards and generators and all sorts of machinery that crowded the already narrow corridors.

The young woman was almost there, she could almost taste the confrontation now. In fact, she could almost smell it. Literally. She recognized the heady scent that now hung in the air – she had smelled it far too often lately. _Well, this is great._ Rounding the corner, for the second time that day, Ylva almost ran into another tall, solid mass but before she did the woman bounded up into the air, grabbing onto a pair of strong shoulders and flipping herself over who she considered the human equivalent of a Colgate commercial, gently landing on the ground. The next moments happened in rapid succession with shocking speed and agility; she reached back and grabbed his arm, pulling him off balance with a violent tug before yanking him against her back. Within seconds she had rolled him off her hips and over her shoulder – but before she could slam him on the ground, he used his own forearm to roll onto his feet. She let go of him immediately and paced back to ready herself for the onslaught. He looked predatory, crouching there, glowering at her with a darkened and forced grin on his face.

_Another doppelganger – the little bastard is trying to distract me. _An idea suddenly came into her. "Stay like that." She smirked at his crouching form.

"Wha—" He only got out half of a word before she barreled towards him, rolling herself across his back and onto the other side of the hallway.

Ylva started to sprint back towards her original destination but paused for a moment, turning around and walking backwards to speak to the clone which had risen to face her in turn. "Come on, Alice Cooper," she tsked. "A double? Did you _really _think I would fall for that again? Time for a few new tricks, don't you think?" She turned to break into a run but collided with what felt like a concrete wall. She was knocked backwards onto the floor. It was the doppelganger. Again. _Shit_, she hissed to herself before stealing a look back only to see an empty causeway.

Looking down upon her, his grin was wider than ever. "Was that new enough for you, Agent Ylva?" Suddenly, one of his hands was tightly wrapped around her neck, lifting her up to his own eyelevel.

Fear was not something Ylva was accustomed to fear – she had only been terrified in Germany because when he decided to 'surprise her', they were in right by a room full of civilians and she was under the impression that it was the _actual _Loki that was going to proceed to harass her. But if there was ever an appropriate time to be afraid, it was now… But she didn't feel afraid. Or angry. Or anything at all. It was the same kind of numbness or maybe indifference that she had felt when she was running to stop Loki from escaping. _Well, that was a bust_. She breathed shallowly and attempted to claw his hand off of her thin neck. He was holding her at a literal arm's length, preventing her from full-on kicking him again.

As she racked her brain for a way to get out of this _literal _bind, Loki tsked at her mockingly, mimicking her earlier tone. "Now, now, _Ylva_…" He let her name roll of his tongue. "Let's not do anything rash."

"Please..." Ylva groaned. For a moment Loki looked proud that he had made her plead; but then he marked the second part of her 'plea'. "Please, stop being such a self-important prick and kill me already." His grin faltered for a moment before returning with a saccharine tint.

"_Oh, _but that would be such a waste… Humans crave subjugation – I've said as much – but _you_…" He chucked darkly. "You crave control – Just. Like. Me." Punctuating each word with an increasingly constricting grip, he pulled her slightly closer to glare into her deep amber eyes. Maybe he was searching for a glimmer of fear or appreciation but no matter what, he was searching for something – that was something she was sure of. "But unlike me, you search for the love, the _approval _of a domineering tyrant and his other lap dogs who will _never _appreciate what you are."

When the words left his lips, the numbness when away for a moment and anger, sweet, familiar anger, rushed back into her system. She saw through the act – he was trying and failing to plant a seed of doubt in her mind, a spark of resentment for the people who she now realized were the closest thing she had to friends, for the people who represented for her what she saw as the best aspects of humanity. But the well-known anger that flowed through her was diluted by something completely foreign to her – especially when it came to Loki. But when she heard him she couldn't help but note that there was bitterness inside the words that only could have come from experience. She felt something that could only be described as empathy for a person that she thought she would never regard with anything but detestation.

But as quickly as it was there, it was gone. Now she just felt angry. "If you think that we are the same," she hissed at him with the little breath that she had. "You are even more fucking delusional than I thought you were." He started to crush her throat but the second he did, she used the few inches he gave her during his latest virulent speech to swing her legs up, kicking hard across the jaw and making him loosen his grip just enough for her to lash out of his hand and drop to the ground. She used the opportunity to sweep his legs, knocking him to the ground with a deft _thud._

Pulling her knife out of her boot, Ylva straddled him and pushed the sharp blade up to his neck – she fully intended to end the double's existence then and there but he surprised her with a disgusting Cheshire-cat grin. "No need," he simpered. "My purposes have been served." And then he was gone.

"No." Ylva near-whimpered aloud to the empty and eerie underbelly of the craft.

She ran faster than she ever had to get to the containment area. _I've failed. I've failed. I've failed. I've failed, _she whimpered in her head – someone was going to get hurt and it would be because she had failed to do what she _had _to do. She found the hatch that led a smaller hallway that merged into the same passage that held the entrance to the room which she so desperately needed to be in.

When Ylva burst through the doorway, she felt angrier than ever had in her life – but not with anyone; with herself. She saw everything as if it was watching it on screen; it was all some act or something, preplanned and safe but this was reality – which Ylva was almost always completely resigned to living in until this moment. There was no cell, leaving a great gaping hole in the room. And then there was Loki, hovering over something… No. Someone.

"Coulson." She said almost inaudibly. Rushing over, she pushed past Loki and knelt over the crumpled form of a man she had known since she was a skittish and small ten-year-old. The man had an ugly blossom of dark red in his usually prim white shirt and was holding a large gun limply in his hand.

He looked up at her with slowly dulling eyes as she started to apply pressure on the wound. "Hey, Ylvie…" If she wasn't so panicked, Ylva might have touched; Coulson hadn't called her that since she was 12 – it was a cognomen for her that was rarely used. Coulson gently patted her hands that were now stained with red and mumbled. "You still need a car seat. You really haven't grown too much… You've gotten stronger."

She tried to choke something out but Loki (who had been standing behind the young woman) interrupted her. "It's too late, you know. Stop." These words had many meanings but Ylva didn't care about any of them as she turned her head back to glare at him.

"What are you going to do if I don't? _Stab _me?" She spat at him with a venomous sarcasm.

Some rare emotion guttered on Loki's face before he returned to a cold and sinister smirk. "Well… Yes." Ylva had no time to react as she felt an unparalleled pain shoot through her back and out her chest. She fell limp like a rag doll, sprawled across the floor in front of Coulson. She heard Coulson making an odd choking sound.

The world seemed darker, out of focus; but everything she felt was heightened as she choked on her own blood. A blurred figure leaned over her, brushing dark chocolate waves out of her face. A cold hand brushed across her jaw and a smooth voice rang like a bell in her head: "Such a waste. Such a waste…" She heard someone walking away.

Coulson's voice echoed in her head now too, speaking to the other voice. "You're going to lose."

"Why?" The smooth voice questioned – _It's Loki's voice, isn't it? _Ylva struggled to keep her eyes open.

"It's in your nature." Coulson's words rang true.

Loki now sounded smugger than ever as he said, "Your heroes are scattered, your floating fortress falls from the sky. Where is my disadvantage?"

"You lack conviction." Those were the last words Ylva heard before her world went black.

* * *

It was a blur. Everything was a blur.

_She was 5 and her father was panicking because she had climbed to the top of the oak tree in their backyard._

_She was 5 and her mother was telling her to be brave when she heard great clashes of thunder, telling her that it fear was something best saved for things that were frightening._

_She was 6 and her father was carrying her on his shoulders, helping her touch branches that she would never be able to reach even in adulthood. _

_She was 6 and her mother was teaching her French, Italian, English, German, Spanish, and Latin._

_She was 7 and her father was taking her to ballet class._

_She was 7 and her mother was making her read the _Prose Edda.

_She was 8 and she was watching hours and hours and hours movies with her father. _

_She was 8 and her mother was teaching her how to sing._

_She was 9 and the roads weren't safe in the snow._

_She was 9 and she wasn't crying. She was saying goodbye to him, her mother standing out of reach, dry-faced._

_She was 10 and she wasn't crying. She was saying goodbye to her mother now._

_15 Years Prior, Norway_

"_I have to leave now," her mother leaned forward and patted her small daughter's head. This was her way – she didn't show physical affection to her daughter; this didn't mean that she didn't care for the girl who was now staring up at her with those big, amber eyes._

"_Where are you going? When are you coming back?" Ylva's eyes narrowed. She was such a curious child even though she could usually figure things out on her own. Sometimes her mother liked to think that Ylva was just testing everyone around her._

_The woman ignored her daughter's question and started to walk out into the snow dusted field behind her daughter's childhood home. "People will come to take care of you."_

_Ylva ran out to her to stop her mother in her tracks. "You can't leave… I need you. I do. It's true – and you can't just leave – that would be criminal negligence. It's illegal… Please." She struggled to find the words and her mother gave her a sad smile._

"_I'm sorry that I'm leaving you."_

"_Then why are you leaving in the first place?"_

"_I can't explain it to you in the way that you would understand." Her mother started to walk again. But stopped when she felt something cold, hard, and wet hit the back of her head. Her ten-year-old had just thrown a snowball at her – and that was strange enough to warrant an arching eyebrow; Ylva was usually very serious when it came to her mother._

_Ylva made another snowball and tossed it back and forth in her hands, her face as stony as ever. "Try me." Her mother simply shook her head and pursed her lips at the small girl._

"_I can't do this," her mother ran her hair through her hair. "I can't stay here anymore and I can't tell you anything – It's not the right time." She started to walk again but only took five steps before being hit hard with another snowball in the middle of her back. _

"_That is not an answer. You…" Ylva tried to keep speaking but there was something stirring in her chest that made it ache with an emotional pain. "Stop. Just… Stop for a moment and tell me what is going to happen to me if you leave? Don't you care about our family anymore?"_

_Her mother put her hands over her own eyes and shook a little – Ylva didn't understand what was going on. Her mother didn't cry and neither did Ylva – it was one of the things that made them alike. Ylva didn't know what to do now. They were at an impasse. A small child who thought far too much like an adult and a woman who had become a stranger to her. _

_When her mother surfaced from her hands, her eyes were red and swollen but she still managed to look beautiful. "I'm leaving. Someone will come for you – I've made sure of it."_

"_The orphanage… But you're _alive_… Why?" Ylva asked quietly. Her mother opened her mouth to tell her something but suddenly the sky started to roil with strange lightning and colors; the mother shouted something but Ylva failed to hear it._

_And then her mother was gone. Just like her father… But the difference was that her father didn't have a choice._

_Ylva dreamt. She was still a child and she was sitting on the cold beach that she had grown up only a few miles away from. The girl looked into the waves and barely noticed when someone sat beside her._

_It was a boy, about her age. He was thin, pale, sharp-looking; obviously smart from the clever glint in his dark emerald eyes. Looking out at the waves he spoke to her in a gentle voice that she could tell he didn't use often. "Who are we?"_

_Ylva suddenly felt exactly like the child she dreamed she was as she leaned on the young boy's shoulder and sighed, "I don't know."_

* * *

She felt herself slowly stir into consciousness. "Valkyrie? _Valkyrie_? Ylva!" A disembodied female pestered her with concern. Trying to flip onto her stomach so she could bury her head under her pillow proved more difficult than it should have – probably due to the fact that someone was pinning her shoulders down and shaking her slightly.

There should have been a creak when Ylva opened her eyes. The overhead light blinded her and she couldn't help but feel she had been awoken for the first time in hundreds of years – it was like the hungover version of Sleeping Beauty. She looked over her own body, her flat torso was bare of fabric but was wrapped like a mummy's – in bandages that Ylva was fairly certain covered a terribly ugly wound; she decided she must be alive. In the afterlife she would have tits. Natasha snapped her fingers in front of Ylva's face, determined to end the dazed look on the girl's face. An eyebrow was arched as Ylva mumbled, "I must have hit my head and fallen into a parallel universe where it's okay to rudely awaken people who have been fatally stabbed."

The other woman chuckled quietly at Ylva. "Good to see dying hasn't affected your sense of humor… Damn, you're lucky that you're Asgardian."

Ylva sat up and rubbed her bandaged chest. "How long was I out?" Natasha seemed to examine her for a moment. Ylva knew what the woman was thinking – she had known her for long enough; Natasha was questioning how far Ylva had been pushed and if it had been just far enough to go over the edge. "You caught the security tapes from the maintenance grid," It wasn't a question. It was a statement that Ylva knew was true. It might have burned her – to know that Natasha was questioning her allegiance. But for some reason, it just hurt now. "Listen, Natasha… I would never –"

There wasn't a need to finish her assurance as Natasha put her hand on Ylva's shoulder. "I know. I'm not wondering if you want to…" She couldn't bring herself to say the word 'defect' – Ylva saw it in her eyes. "You are… complicated. You have all of these faults – you are cocky and snarky and you can't bear to admit that you want something other than what life has given you. Probably because that would make it all too real. You're complicated. But you're also good," Natasha squeezed the other woman's shoulder; it was a small gesture of affection between two people whose pasts had both been riddled with self-loathing – one, from actions that could perhaps be atoned for, and the other for reasons out of her control. It was a gesture of small understanding. It made Ylva realize that while it was possible that no one could ever really understand what she had gone through, 'small understanding' was enough for her for now.

Ylva smiled – not smirked or grinned or simpered. She smiled. "Thank you… Now," She clapped her hands together and stood up, becoming acutely aware of the soreness that racked her. "What's the news?"

Natasha remained on the bed and crossed her arms. "Clint is awake. And no longer under Loki's control – I just came from his room in the sickbay… Coulson is…"

"Yeah," Ylva said gently and sadly, almost whispering as she crossed the room to the sliding panel that lead to a closet. She pulled out a fresh jumpsuit and turned to look over her shoulder at Natasha, sighing, "I suppose it was time for us all to wake up."

"You can say that again." A male voice came from the doorway. Clint Barton. Still dress in his sickbay attire. He walked over and sat on the bed beside Natasha. "Did someone leave you in the drier too long? You seem to have shrunk."

"Remind me to hit you later when you aren't still dressed like an invalid so I won't feel guilty," Ylva tried not to smirk at him. "Welcome back."

"Time to go." Suddenly, Rogers was in her room as well.

"Go where?" Natasha asked.

Rogers shook his head hurriedly. "I'll tell you on the way." Ylva raised her eyebrow yet again.

"Your powers of explanation amaze me."

Rogers shot her a small grin before returning to his serious demeanor and turning to Natasha. "Can you fly one of those jets?" Barton stood up, earning a slightly suspicious look from Rogers who Ylva now remembered had never encountered Barton when he wasn't on 'the Dark side'.

"I can," Barton said, Natasha nodding in affirmation.

Rogers looked somewhat sated as he asked, "You got a suit?" Barton nodded curtly. "Then suit up. Both of you."

The Valkyrie was back. And she was ready.

* * *

**Alright everyone – can someone tell me what the best time is to post stories? I just have no damn idea. BUT also tell me what you thought of the chapter. It's longer than usual. And more violent. And I snuck in some tender moments as well. So.  
**

**REVIEW. Show some love for the Valkyrie and she will show some love to you.**


End file.
